The Daily Show and Colbert Report might be the most effective media watchdogs around right now. Night after night, they manage to satirize both the politicians and the media organizations who cover them with an acid tongue. As you may remember, Glenn Beck, one of their favorite targets (and my least favorite human beings), held a rally at the Lincoln Memorial on the anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream Speech" a few weeks ago.
Not to be outdone, last night, Stewart and Colbert announced a rally more or less in response to Beck's. Below, peep their announcements on their respective shows last night. Pretty funny stuff and from everything I've read, this thing is actually happening, though I think that their biggest challenge will be convincing people it's not a joke. Here's to hoping they get a solid turnout.
Yeah, I know its sort of backwards the unemployed one raising money for the one with the cushy law job. But I am a better person than Josh. That being said, Josh is in better shape than me. As such, he is doing a 75/100 mile bike ride to raise money to fight MS. Anyway, take two seconds, donate to the cause.
I made a donation and added an incentive donation if Josh manned up and did the full 100 miles and not the child's 75 mile ride. I encourage you to do the same. Alternative incentive donations that I recommend are:
- Vomit bonus - Bonus for recreating this with a fellow rider
- Bonus if he organizes a pack and yells at the people in the pack to speed up so he can properly draft - Stopping at the 50 mile marker and housing a glass of whole milk (which would also get him the vomit bonus) - Popping a wheelie as he crosses the finish line - Doing the ride on a unicycle
If you are not into having fun, a regular donation would be much appreciated, too.
Also, if we can get enough support, I am trying to make Josh live vlog the entire ride to see how he performs on our bonuses. Plus it would just be funny to see him ride around with a helmet cam.
Similarly amazing, albeit in a much more grotesque way, to Mike's post about the Arcade Fire project, is this project doing a form of time lapse photography on a double cheeseburger meal. I honestly can't stop wondering how long it will take for them to look inedible. Below is a clip that shows some scientist going Breaking Bad on a double cheeseburger to show how it digests in your stomach. Safe to say after this I'll be sticking to In'N'Out and Five Guys and praying some photographer/limey UK scientist doesn't get any bright ideas as to similar experiments with them.
Click the link to experience this amazing fusion of music and Google's SkyNet abilities. Then wait anxiously for Michael's Arcade Fire rant (which will appear soon, dont you worry)
Saw this today and was probably more incredulous than when I saw the tiny pencil tip sculptures. 62 fucking miles long? Weeks to clear? What could possibly worse?? Oh I know, having gypsies/nose bears incessantly pestering you and offering their wares at exorbitant prices when you have no where to go to escape their terror. Seriously though, how many people will literally die sitting in this traffic? Hundreds? Thousands?? I think I'd have to place that slightly below being burned alive and above crucifixion on the continuum of awful ways to go.
I'm still trying to figure out how long these took this this artist to do. Truly amazing and I can't begin to imagine how frustrating it was every time the tip broke. My guess is he used something other than a #2 pencil.
On vacation this week so I'll keep it short and sweet. This is a compilation put together with the help of a bunch of contributers of the 100 greatest long-form magazine articles of all time. The list is separated by decades with the articles receiving the most nominations appearing at the beginning. Two articles I've posted before made the list, the article on hospice care, and the article on the death penalty and the arsonist from Texas. The list gets updated so check back from time to time.
A few years ago it seemed like every band I liked was from Portland, moved to Portland or had been from Portland Portland was like epi-center of my musical world. This meant two things; one I pretty much was only listening to music made by white people and two, I thought I wanted to live in Portland. The former has remained true by and large (With some obvious and notable exceptions) while the former can just be added to the long list of things I was wrong about in law school. See, I visited Portland and it wasnt really that cool. The city's shtick was easy to identify and wasnt really that amazing 1) Portlanders are always drinking something, probably coffee or beer, often in rotation to mix the uppers and the downers 2) They hike more than you or I ever will and dress the part with regularity 3) They care less than you 4) They are whiter than you (Arizona should probably just look at what Portland did if it wants to rid itself of Latinos, as its the only city in America I have ever been to where I literally did not see a single Latino/Latina) 5) They are more apathetic than you and will go great lengths to prove to it and 6) They dont respect Kevin Pritchard, which is a joke (google it).
Despite my falling out with Portland, I am mature enough to realize that the city may have a few redeeming qualities even if the hipsters have ruined it. One of those redeeming qualities is Menomena. I'd say they are in my top 5 bands but we all know every band I like is in my top 5 bands I like so thats really a meaningless title to award them. But they are good. They just released a new album, Mines and its good to quite good. Here are a few tracks from it. Their earlier work is also pretty great, so check that out too.
I posted another article by Atul Gawande a while back that dealt with health care costs by looking at two towns in Texas. This excellent and at times tear-jerking article deals with looking at reducing health care costs and improving quality of life through the use of hospice car. The article hit close to home on several fronts, but I think anyone regardless of past experience can relate to what he talks about. The article does an amazing job of describing the dilemma physicians face when talking about end-of-life-care as a result of society's view of death. I still blame the GOP for mischaracterizing, nay, lying, about "death panels" when health care was being debated and causing reimbursement for counseling to disappear, but I realize now the problem goes much deeper than that. More than anything, it comes down to a choice between the societal ideal of fighting death to the bitter end or giving up the chance to be healed and focusing on enjoying life and minimizing pain.
I'd like to thank Mike for being the bigger (read: more weak-willed) man and finally posting. The blog is back at least until next month when it's been another six weeks since his lazy-ass has posted.
