Obama on Letterman

His comic timing is nothing to write home about.

Wikipedia's explanation of the common mispronunciation of nuclear is as follows:

"The principle that converts nuclear to nucular is founded in the phonotactics of the English language.

1. By assimilation, the [kli.ər] sequence of the word [n(j)uː.kli.ər] becomes [kljər] in natural speech.
2. The consonant cluster [klj] is strongly disfavoured in English: English stops are followed by one approximant at most.
3. The disfavoured cluster [klj] is reduced. That reduction is achieved through metathesis ([l] and [jə] are swapped so that [kljər] becomes [kjəl(ə)r])."

As if that makes any sense. Nice try, wikipedia.

Friday Funny

Go ahead, make my ad.

A while back, Mitt Romney asked visitors to his web site to design their own TV spot. Technology makes this a lot easier nowadays. But is Romney just getting his ad work for free?
I give him credit for trying to engage the types of folks who have the skills to be able to produce an ad. But that obviously isn't everyone.
If I was teaching a production class during the contest, this could be an interesting assignment.

Go to http://www.mittromney.com/Mitt-TV/index

and look for the winner of the create your own ad contest, "Ready For Action."

Post 2: Huckabee is nuts

He wants to change the constitution to more closely support fundamental Christians. I love it!!!

I drool at the thought of that quote coming up in the general - please baby jesus...make Huckabee the winner! I think he's become quite aware that the quote has and will continue to destroy his campaign...too bad really.



On another note...huckles can no longer fund his top aids; they are now working pro-bono. If it wasn't for Guliani's insistence to kill unborn babies and to protect illegal immigrants - him and huckabee would be a match made in heaven.

Guess what, Obama is not a muslim.

It may have taken months and months of ignorant hillbilly-based rumors about Obama's religion but he's finally putting his foot down: he's a christian. I don't know why he hasn't been pounding this fact home since the beginning but for whatever reason his campaign staff has avoided it.

Can anyone make sense of why he's waited so long?

I know at least a few of the 'educated' folks here in Tcom who to this day believe obama to be a islamic fundamentalist trying to infiltrate America. Just this weekend I had to pin someone against a wall and politely ask them to stop spreading stupid rumors. I'm just thankful he's address it now...a mere 5 days before the first evangelical primary.

Another thing: bill clinton...go away. I love love love bill clinton and rightfully so, he's the best president of my lifetime and at this rate will continue to hold that top position. But comeon...your wife is not you and is not electable in the general...so stop making me mad at you; I hope she gets slaughtered in South Carolina.

Sleepy Bill

In honor of Bill Clinton falling asleep, YesButNoButYes put together a Youtube list of sleepy politicians. I feel for Bill on this one. I remember I fell asleep like that twice while driving on I65. That was pretty dangerous.

Segue time! I found some videos from Real Time with Bill Maher that are pretty funny. Sure, Bill is a filthy scab, but these are still worth watching. In the first one Dan Savage visits the Republican Primary in South Carolina and calls out everybody's favorite gay basher, Mike Huckabee. In the second (and less funny) clip Bill himself talks to some very confused people about the candidates they support. And all of this with no writers!

On a closing note, this video may be a few days old, but it's still hilarious.

Just saw this...

While I was getting ideas for our projects, I came across this page... Interesting site to get ideas!

http://www.j-lab.org/cool_elec.shtml

Morning Radio Disappointments...

Every morning when I get up & get ready for my day I listen to the radio. I listen to a popular morning show in Indianapolis (The Smiley Morning Show) which is pretty much the only option since Radio Now is no more. Anyway, for about the hour it takes me to get ready, I am totally focused on their topics. They do usually cover national election news, but this morning really disappointed me. The only thing they could mention about the election was the fact that Bill Clinton fell asleep during an MLK day show? I realize that if I want real election coverage, I could switch to an AM channel and get my fill. The problem is, what about the rest of the demographic? Am I to believe they actually read the paper, (ha!) turn on CNN throughout the day, or are constantly perusing the web for updates?

I’m not saying that this demographic wouldn’t rather hear the latest Britney Spears story over the latest presidential candidate debate. It just bothers me, and I felt like blogging about it…

http://www.wzpl.com

Huck&Chuck

I was browsing through different sites to find something for my Blog this week and I found http://promoteyourvote.com/ Here you can get cheap customized products to "promote" your candidate: address labels, T-shirts, mugs etc. I know that isn't anything special or exciting - we all know how important support from the public is! (although the site only represents the two main parties!)

But I really cracked up when I saw the following:

"Huck & Chuck 2008"
"Support Mike Huckabee and Chuck Norris for President in 2008 with this swanky T."

And on the back of the shirt you can choose to print your "favorite Chuck Norris facts" including one of those:
- Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.
- There is no theory of evolution. Just a list of creatures Chuck Norris has allowed to live.
- Chuck Norris is the reason why Waldo is hiding

WHUT?!
OK: Schwarzenegger is governor, Reagan was an actor, too...and sometimes humor can be an important refreshment in dry and serious election campaigns....but if Chuck Norris is successful in attracting teenagers who can vote/will vote in a few years - I am worried about the young generation!

NPR has a short and hilarious article on this subject: "Action Hero Helps Draw Teens to Huckabee"
(http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17914847&adultclean)

P.S.: my favorite quote from the article:
"Huckabee rarely talks about his immigration policy, but why does he need to when he has ads like this: "My plan to secure the border? Two words: Chuck Norris.""

How many videos posted in the presidential candidates' websites 2

Again, I counted the videos posted on YouTube channel for each candidates and the selected ones on their websites, the following are the numbers:

Republican Party:

Ron Paul has 112 selected videos on his campaign website from Feb 26, 2007 to Jan 22, 2008.(There are 107 on YouTube RonPaul2008dotcom channel)

Mitt Romney has 298 selected videos in 9 catagories on his campaign website on Jan 22, 2008 (There are 644 on YouTube GovMittRomney channel)

Fred Thompson has 168 selected videos on his campaign website from August 8, 2007 to Jan 18, 2008. (There are 54 on YouTube fredthompson channel)

Rudy Giuliani has 100 selected videos on his campaign website from Oct 28, 2007 to Jan 22, 2008. (There are 417 on YouTube RudyGiulianiHQ channel)

Mike Huckabee has 20 selected videos on his campaign website from January 4, 2008 to January 15, 2008. (There are 178 on YouTube explorehuckabee channel)

John McCain has 40 selected videos on his campaign website from August 28, 2007 to January 20, 2008. (There are 141 on YouTube JohnMcCaindotcom channel)

Kuomintang (KMT, Chinese Nationalist Party) in Taiwan holds similar political position as Republican Party, the candidate of KMT is 馬英九 (Ma, Ying-Jeou) has 126 selected videos on his campaign website.

For laughs

Of the many RSS feeds I've got pumping into Google Reader, only a handful deal exclusively with Election 2008.

Most recently added to my RSS lineup: Comedy Central's Indecision 2008 Web site, including feeds for related Daily Show and Colbert Report videos, and a fairly humorous blog.

No, it's not the New York Times. It's not even the Indy Star. But I lack cable at my place of residence in Muncie, so these feeds are my link the the satire making politics so enjoyable for our generation.

Comedy Central's parent, Viacom, is suing Google/YouTube over copyright issues, and this content is the basis of their argument. Up until now, though, Comedy Central has given no easily viral way to share this content. (A clunky, ad-covered, memory-intensive player is not a good way to share.)

Ta-da.

They've branded out their own in-browser, linkable and embed-capable video player for all the clips featured on the Indecision site. It's a little taste of the Daily Show and Colbert Report whenever and wherever I want it.

Who says politics don't make a difference?

Changing Their Tune

I think next to the definition of "knee jerk reaction" should be the picture of the 2008 presidential candidates. This week as it became more evident that our economy is in a down turn the media started to turn their attention away from the election and more onto the economy. To not be outdone by Washington each candidate immediately released their "stimulus" plan. It was almost comical to see the sound bites back to back from each candidate saying, "and today I am releasing my economic stimulus plan." Like each of them had the answers to all of our problems in a simple plan. One by one like dominoes as soon as John McCain released his plan everyone was announcing theirs as fast as they could. Most of these plans were rushed together and were not revolutionary what-so-ever. At least Edwards' plan did not involve giving money to everyone. I am not saying that before this week the economy was not an issue. However, before this week there was little talk about the economy and a lot of talk about non issues. Maybe we should be glad that finally we are getting some concrete details on how the candidates would make the changes they talk about non stop. Change has been the number one word used for all of the candidates but there are very few details on how they will make these changes. Not even on their websites are there a lot of these details. Campaigns have become more about the candidate and less about the issues. The result is a popularity contest and not a contest of qualifications.