More Help Understanding U.S. Foreign Policy

Yeah...makes me want to get Cable.

UPDATE: The video was yanked from YouTube...found it again on Metacafe.

Daily Show - America To The Rescue

Forbidden Lego. Forsigtighed!

Wow...Who wouldn't love this? Another great reason Engineers rule!
With Forbidden Lego you can design and build all the dangerous things the Lego folks could never offer for fear of lawsuits and bad press.

Be sure to check out the Video Sample of the Lego gun and the Step by Step plans for a paper airplane launcher.

Fornøjelse!

The You Tube Threat

An interesting television show was on the other night on ABC. I found it interesting because it was a great example of TV trying to survive in the face of streaming video...I guess they see things like YouTube and Metacafe as competition.
The show is called icaught and it basically rehashes everything you'cve already seen online.Maybe it's just another cheap attempt to grab ratings...it's easy to run a teaser of guys crashing bikes or animals going nuts to draw in viewers.
But they have an added advantage: A big budget.

For example, they took a now-famous video, which coincidentally is referenced on my friend Ned's blog and gathered together those involved for interviews. I was torn. I mean, the video itself is what YouTube is all about..the raw, real world thrown out there in ever increasing numbers of videos. However, the folks at ABC got the guy who took the video(turns out he barely knows how to work his camera) and another guy who DIDN'T film it,but posted a copy he received on YouTube for a friend to see. They can pay to get all those involved together and "explain" it all to you.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, i-caught is just shameless copycatting by a powerful network, masquerading as, yes, NEWS.

On the other hand, it is interesting to get some back-story on the stuff you see.

Ultimately, I have to give it a thumbs down. The cheesy voice-overs and unnecessary editing(gotta save time for commercials) and the whole bandwagon mentality turns me off of it.
They should stick with what they're good at when it comes to videos: People getting hit in the crotch.


PS I might watch if they get Gary Brolsma on.

Foreign Policy Primer

A little too close for comfort...
How to Explain Foreign Policy to your kids

Winnebago Warrior

Imagine that! A pro-war Republican with sons who are NOT enlisting.
No, really, driving around helping Dad get elected is really tough work...

Tiocfaidh Ár Lá

One step closer!

Let's hope this heralds the beginning of a new era!

Get Lost

When I was young and stupid(I'm old and stupid now), some friends and I discovered some abandoned buildings on a soon-to-be deactivated Air Force base we used to live on.
It was night and we wandered around one particular building, finding our way with flashlights, peering into the frozen-in-time eeriness of the rooms and offices.
The jackpot was what appeared to be a command center with a huge plexiglass map board a la Dr. Stranglove. You could just imagine scores of soldiers plotting the trajectories of bombers across this map, while the Brass stood above, looking approvingly out of the large, glassed in office.

This site brought back that feeling. A great collection of photos taken of abandonded towns,factories...and creepily enough, Abandoned Mental Institutions
Looking at some of these, you get a sort of a The Shining meets The Blair Witch Project kind of feel. What is it about exploring empty buildings that makes you start believing in ghosts?

Seek and You Shall Find

From PC World comes this excellent collection of some strange sights discovered via Google Earth.

If you really like them, you can download the Placemark

The Badlands Gaurdian is incredible...I think I like the naturally occuring weirdness versus the man-made weirdness.

OK, I'm off to find my own oddities out there. A while back I found some strange circles in the Saudi Arabian desert...I'll see if I can find them again. That or finding a little boat out in the middle of south Pacific would be cool.

Loaded With Fun

What do you get when you cross The Cramps with The IDF?

Israeli Girls with Machine Guns
Apologies to Lux Interior

Speaking of Spoilers...

WARNING: Bible Spoiler*


* Digg'd ad naseum

Free Elections

Interesting perspective on the mess in Israel/Palestine.
I still keep going back to the fact that these maniacs were freely elected and our President, whose self-proclaimed mission is to spread Democracy throught the world, and especially the Muslim world, is doing everything he can to undermine an elected government.(And not just Venezuela's).

Hamas acted on a very real fear of a US-sponsored coup | Israel and the Middle East | Guardian Unlimited

This land is your land...as long as you're Christian I guess

Ahhh..Who says we don't have our very own Taliban in this country?
Who was it said "When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in an American flag, holding a cross"?
American Taliban

Maps! Maps! Maps!

Wow....
Paracelsus had an awesome post regarding some excellent map mashups out there.
Intrigued, and on a somewhat different tack(looking for payphone maps), I found Google Maps Mania which offers up the most amazing array of mashups imaginable.

Zum Beispiel: A map to help you figure out your Taxi Fare before you even hit the ground...No more long ways around the park!

Night on Earth

So much cool stuff..I think my next few evenings are going to be lost in looking at maps.
I wonder if there are any Here There Be Monsters mashups out there?

File Under: Why Didn't I think of that?

From LifeHacker comes this awesome idea for those of in need of a bathroom, like NOW.

Now, if only that guy who craps on the corner of Capp and 16th streets could get a cell phone...

Rheem Hot Water

OK, this is not something to play at work(unless you have headphones), but an Aussie co-worker played this for me quite a while back and I nearly keeled over from laughing.
Then we couldn't find it any more....disappeared into the ether somehow.
Well, he's back Ladies and Gentlemen, The Rheem Hot Water Guy

NOTE: In case it's not clear,or his accent is too much for you, he having a serious problem with his water heater and is trying to reach someone at Rheem for service.

Order In The Court

OK, I can't tell you how happy I am to hear this guy LOST his suit against the Dry Cleaners that lost his pants.

They even tried to give him $1000 to replace them, but he would have none of it...No, the only just compenation in his mind for losing his pants was $54 million!

Just too weird

OK, from the guy who brought you Wigstock...a nice little video to give you nightmares for weeks.

So STRANGE I won't embed the video.

What? No Outsourcing Jokes?

Still funny stuff:

Das Leben der Anderen

I hate to play up a movie too much, for fear will imbue someone with such high expectations that upon seeing the film they are disappointed. Well, I'm going to take a chance here and tell you to see The Lives of Others(Das Leben der Anderen).

I will warn you not to read too much of the description above. I find that the less I know of a movie before going in, the more enjoyable it is...maybe that's just me.

At any rate, it's a very well made film and manages to transport you back in to East Berlin circa 1984. My wife and I both jumped and glanced at each other knowingly when one of the characters entered a corner bar in East Berlin. It was uncanny how it captured the same look and feel of a bar we had accidentally stumbled upon while lost on the other side of the wall a year before it came crashing down.

So check out he film and let me know what you think. It still haunts me days after seeing it.

I once was lost, but now I'm 404

Talk about stumbling upon stuff! I was checking my Google ranking(Big fat zero by the way) and found the St. Frank site. Nice domain name....Lucky! Anyway, I was checking some of the links and found this awesome 404 page!Heh.

Got me to thinking...there must be a jillion other 404's out there.
And I was right.
Probably the oldest site dedicated to 404.

Area 404

404 Webring

Now, go find some of your own...or just don't find what you're looking for.