Another great animated cartoon by Mark Fiore! This one recaps 2009 as it comes to a close..
Monthly Archives: January 2010
RIP Art Clokey, Gumby creator
We members of a certain generation remember the weirdness that was Gumby & Pokey. I think I enjoyed my bendable Gumby figure than I did my Barbies.
Clokey first molded Gumby for a surreal student project at the University of Southern California called “Gumbasia.” That led to his making shorts for the “Howdy Doody Show” and several series through the years.
He said he based Gumby’s swooping head on the hairdo of his father, who died when Clokey was nine.
I always wondered about that sloping head. ;)
Rest in Peace, Mr Clokey.
The Watering Hole: January 9 – The Autogyro
The Autogyro is a rotary winged aircraft that relies on either pusher or tractor power to achieve flight. Lift is accomplished by controlling pitch and yawl of the rotary wing in a forward/backward and side to side manner. The unpowered rotary wing served as the lift mechanism. Either an inertial weight or friction brake at the base of the rotary wing served to limit rotational velocity. In the event of engine failure, the rotary wing served as a virtual parachute for the entire craft.
This is our open thread. Please feel free to offer your own comments on any topic.
Hey, it’s Music Night
Kicking off music night with a little Heart. :)
No theme tonight, unless you want one. Enjoy!
The King would have been 75 today
Dedicated to the Love of my Life:
Friday Juvenile Humor Blogging
Heh. Hoof Hearted? ;)
Okay, I got that out of my system — excuse me — I guess all y’all can top it. Jokes, funny videos, whatever. Just have some fun on a Friday!
The Right Wing Feverishly Attempts to Re-Write History
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The newest Right Wing/Republican tactic in their quest to destroy President Obama, and further add to the divisive culture in this country, is a feverish attempt to re-write history regarding terror attacks under George W. Bush.
Republican politicians and assorted shills have hit their knees to thank the baby Jesus for the failed Underpants Bomber,Umar Farouk Abdulmuttalab, who turned out to be every bit as inept as the failed Shoe Bomber, Richard Reid. Because of this attempted terror attack, Republicans, with their sick and twisted minds, have launched an all out campaign to scare the shit out of Americans.
BRIT HUME: You know, if I were the Al Qaida people, I think Bill [Kristol]‘s right. They could look at this as a success. This was — this was an attack that didn’t succeed on the scale it was expected to but did succeed.
Brit Hume, ladies and gentlemen, head cheerleader for Al Qaeda. By the way, who are the “Al Qaida people?”
LURITA DOAN: Everyone keeps saying how lucky we are that the “crotch” bomber on Flight 253 was unable to ignite the explosives hidden in his underwear, but I am sorry to report that the attack was a actually a huge success. The plane was not destroyed and no lives were lost, but the larger, strategic goals of al Qaeda were certainly advanced.
This from a woman forced to resign in disgrace from the Bush administration, which is known for its determination to reward failure. Lurita is Hume’s second in command. ”Go Al Qadea!”
MONICA CROWLEY: After 9-11, President Bush and Vice President Cheney had a 100 percent perfect track record in keeping the homeland safe from an Islamic terrorist attack. So far this year, we’ve had numerous attacks.
Even a hack like Bill O’Reilly couldn’t stomach that one, and had to ask her about the Shoe Bomber…
CROWLEY: That was coming into the United States. It was not a domestic terror attack. I mean, it was meant to be, but it was stopped by the folks on the plane.
Detroit isn’t part of the United States? When did that happen? Srsly…
SHERMAN FREDERICK: In his January 3 column, Las Vegas Review-Journal publisher Sherman Frederick falsely claimed that “the two cases of domestic terrorism since 9/11″ happened “on Obama’s watch.”
This guy could probably look at his own newspaper to do that fact-check…or use the Google…or not.
RUDY GIULIANI: What [Obama] should be doing is following the right things Bush did. One of the right things he did was treat this as a war on terror. We had no domestic attacks under Bush. We’ve had one under Obama.
Doesn’t this negate the entire existence of Mr Noun, a Verb, and 9/11?
The Watering Hole: January 8 – The National Debt
On January 8, 1835, the United States was solvent, albeit for only a very short time, for the first and only time in its history. The National Debt hit zero on this date.
This is our open thread. Please feel free to offer your own comments on any topic.
Simply terrifying…
Olbermann taunts the GOP by using word terror 27 times. This is in response to Rep. Peter King (R-New York)’s statement that President Barack Obama didn’t use the word “terrorism” enough in his discussing the Detroit plane plot.
From Huffington Post: Rep. King’s Recommendation To Obama For Fixing Counterterrorism: ‘Use The Word Terrorism More Often’ (with video).
Now I have to poke my eyes out…
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Jeff Danziger, Syndicated Political Cartoonist
America’s nightmare = Senator DeMint’s happy place
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World
Hoarding the crumbs…
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Jeff Danziger, Syndicated Political Cartoonist
Never give up!
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World
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Semper Ubi Sub Ubi…
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Jack Ohman, Portland Oregonian
Time Warp: Don’t be a Sucker
This film was made by the US military in 1947, and deconstructs the social manipulation and division of the Nazis party in Germany.
Look familiar? The tactics used by such groups as Fox News, FreedomWorks, and Americans For Progress, along with their Tea Party followers are eerily similar aren’t they?
There is nothing new under the sun. After fighting World War II against the murderous fascists, are we now going to fall for these tactics ourselves? Are WE the suckers now?
Stay tuned…
HT: Commenter sc mom on ThinkProgress
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Facebook group formed to assassinate the President
Several months ago, a poll on Facebook asked whether or not President Obama should be assassinated. More than one hundred Facebook members apparently thought this was a dandy idea and formed a “Kill Obama” Facebook group that was online for more than a month. Not until an alert blogger pointed this out to Facebook was the page removed.
Brian Cuban pointed this out to Facebook and also noted the relevant US statute.
The federal statute that makes it a crime to threaten the President is 18 U.S. Code § 871(a). It provides as follows:
Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance in the mail or for a delivery from any post office or by any letter carrier any letter, paper, writing, print, missive, or document containing any threat to take the life of, to kidnap, or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States. . . shall be fined . . . or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
Chris Matyszczyk, a blogger for CNET, followed up with more information, including a fatuous response from Facebook staff:
The group in question, which was created by an individual user, was brought to our attention on Monday and was removed promptly. As for the broader issue of controversial content that may appear on Facebook, I wonder how a phone company would answer a question about preventing threatening phone calls or how the postal service would respond about preventing threatening letters? And Web mail providers about threatening e-mails?
As Matyszczyk notes, it’s a tiny bit easier for Facebook to monitor pages than for a phone company to monitor call content. When he suggested that simple keyword monitoring would prevent pages like this from staying online, he received yet another fatuous response, that “millions” of possible permutations of the words “kill” and “obama” would make this too difficult.
I know that there are many mathematically skilled readers here, so perhaps they might offer a view on these millions of permutations. My nonmathematical methods just revealed to me that by searching “Kill Obama,” there were only 571 results. These results didn’t appear to offer anything as overtly threatening as “Kill Obama.” Indeed, the top group, with 143 members, was “Don’t Kill Barack Obama.”
Since profiles of all the members of this group were available online, the open question is whether or not the Secret Service has paid them all a visit (even the Canadians). And it’s pretty clear that Facebook needs to be far more responsible about the content they allow to be posted.
The Word: Ideal or No Deal
Stephen Colbert goes after those demanding racial profiling in the wake of the “almost” Christmas bombing.
more about "The Word: Ideal or No Deal", posted with vodpod
The Watering Hole: January 6 & 7 – Samuel Morse
January 6th in 1838 marks the day of the first successful test of the Morse electrical telegraph system by Samuel Morse. He and Alfred Vail developed the device as well as the fledging form of what is called the Morse Code. Actually, Vail did most of the work on developing the code and key components of the system. Morse’s primary contribution was the single wire system utilizing earth ground for a return path.
While others were in the process of developing electrical systems for the transmission of data, the combination of a single wire transmission system and the dot-dash code became a world standard until the invention of the telephone and teletype.
Morse was an artist by trade, but was motivated to develop the system when his wife passed away on February 7, 1825, unpredictably, at age twenty-five. Morse was in Washington, DC on a painting assignment on that date. By the time he was notified and returned home to New Haven, his home base, she had already been buried. Mail was the only form of information transmission at that time and was fraught with delays. Morse believed that there had to be a better way.
This is our open thread. Please feel free to offer your own comments on any topic.
Six of one, half a dozen of the other
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Created for TheZoo by Paul Jamiol
All cartoons are posted with the artists’ express permission to TPZoo.
Paul Jamiol, Jamiol’s World
The Watering Hole: January 5 – National Bird Day
National Bird Day is a day created by bird enthusiasts to mark the end of the Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count, which was scheduled this year for December 14, 2009 through January 05, 2010. No act of Congress has been passed to make this an official national holiday. The interests of the group is the throttling down the mistreatment of birds marketed as pets by the industry (profit motivated) and owners who release them into the wild. Here in northern Florida there are numerous populations of “wild” parrakeet’s derived from released or escaped pets.
To take another track, my uncle, an MD, found a robin in his yard with a broken leg. He set and put the broken leg in a mini cast and kept the bird in a twenty gallon tank until the bone had healed. He feed it with ground beef and millet seed while it was captive. After removing the cast and keeping the bird for an additional week, he set the tank out on his porch and removed the cover.
The bird flew off, but returned each evening for a meal. Later the following spring, it would return for a handout at 20 minute intervals as long as his car was in the driveway.
The Watering Hole: January 4, Last Winter
January, 2009
Photo by Zooey
At this time last year, the snow around here was epic. This year, we’ve had nothing like it, and the next ten days are looking good. :)
What’s your winter been like, so far? Typical? Unusual?
This is our daily open thread. Please feel free to comment about what’s on your mind.
Silly Syllogism
God created man.
Man domesticated banana.
Banana is perfect proof of God’s existence.
Of course, the only logical conclusion to be drawn from this is:
Man is God!
HT Ralph the Wonder Llama (at TP)
Sunday Roast: Absolutely Fabulous!
Absolutely Fabulous is one of my favorite British comedies. Patsy and Eddie keep me laughing until my sides are aching, with their outrageous behavior. Here’s a little background from the Wiki:
Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone are two immature, chain-smoking, alcoholic, prosperous but preposterous substance-abusing fashion and fad-obsessed Londoners who value fame and style over substance. Saffron, Edina’s adolescent daughter, provides the persistently dour voice of Edina and Patsy’s super-ego. Edina and Saffy live in a house in Holland Park (although most who visit the house describe it as Shepherds Bush much to Eddy’s annoyance), with Patsy spending most of her time there as well. Saffy acts as a care-[taker]to some degree to Eddy, who appears incapable of performing any domestic tasks.
And now, in one of my all-time favorite episodes, Edina, Patsy and Saffie take a trip to Morocco. Enjoy…
Part 1 of 3 (each about 10 minutes long)
The Watering Hole: January 2, Implosion!
HT: Briseadh na Faire
This implosion of the New Frontier Hotel happened in November, 2007, but it’s got nice a fireworks display.
I noticed that no one was shooting off fireworks this year on New Year’s Eve (not that my dog minded AT ALL), just a few students who’s stayed in town running around screaming and waving their arms.
On our traditional Christmas Eve drive through town to look at Christmas lights, my son and I noted that there were very few homes decorated — the fewest since we moved here almost 10 years ago.
People on Main Street are feeling the pain, and the banksters on Wall Street are celebrating tax breaks on their taxpayer-funded bonuses.
This is our daily open thread, feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.
Rachel Maddow talks about the John Birch Society
Rachel’s guest is Thomas Frank, of the Wall Street Journal.
It just goes to show that there is nothing new under the sun. John Birchers, meet the teabaggers.
