“President” Bush attended the White House Correspondants dinner yesterday, which was hosted by Stephen Colbert. Aside from the goofy lookalike who openly mocked Bush, Colbert absolutely ripped into him in his usual witty manner.

My favorite highlight (this one’s for you, Dennis):

Colbert, who spoke in the guise of his talk show character, who ostensibly supports the president strongly, urged the Bush to ignore his low approval ratings, saying they were based on reality, “and reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

More liberal jokes:

Also lampooning the press, Colbert complained that he was “surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides of the story — the president’s side and the vice president’s side.”

Another couple of stingers:

Turning to the war, he declared, “I believe that the government that governs best is a government that governs least, and by these standards we have set up a fabulous government in Iraq.”

Observing that Bush sticks to his principles, he said, “When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday - no matter what happened Tuesday.”

Last week, I practically hit the ceiling when I noticed Brian was using the brand spanking new Google Calendar web site. I had been anticipating Google Calendar like some people await the coming of Christ, so when it was released, I immediately fled Yahoo and became fully-Googled. All my Yahoo mail is getting forwarded to my gmail account, and it will be for quite some time.

As expected, gmail is far nicer than yahoo mail, most importantly: quicker and more efficient. Also as expected, google calendar demolishes yahoo calendar in terms of efficiency and flexibility. I highly recommend both services (which are free) to anyone looking for a good webmail or web-calendar account.

I saw this 1925 Silent film with live accompaniment from Alloy Orchestra on a newly-restored print. It was, of course, cliched, but overall it was pleasant and very enjoyable. 3/5 stars.

Clive Owen stars as a dejected croupier (card dealer) in this gritty film-noir-ish british movie, which had enough plot twists and interesting characters to keep me interested and entertained. 4/5 stars.

I just read this editorial about those retired generals who are calling for Rumsfeld’s resignation and I felt like sharing one of the witty quips in the article which I feel captured Bush’s take on his role in government:

According to lore, Harry Truman kept a sign on his desk that read “The Buck Stops Here!” George W. Bush’s desk probably sports a singing, animatronic bass, but that principle hasn’t changed. The president is ultimately responsible for the actions of his administration.

I read about an example of this in a book I’m reading now, but I thought I’d share with you all this interesting phenomenon called “Cargo Cults”. It began in World War II, when air-lifted cargo was flown into isolated Pacific islands where the US soldiers set up temporary bases. Here is an excerpt from this Wikipedia article about it:

The vast amounts of war matériel that were air-dropped into these islands during the Pacific campaign against the Empire of Japan necessarily meant drastic changes to the lifestyle of the islanders. Manufactured clothing, canned food, tents, weapons and other useful goods arrived in vast quantities to equip soldiers—and also the islanders who were their guides and hosts. By the end of the war the airbases were abandoned, and “cargo” was no longer being dropped.

In attempts to get cargo to fall by parachute or land in planes or ships again, islanders imitated the same practices they had seen the soldiers, sailors and airmen use. They carved headphones from wood, and wore them while sitting in fabricated control towers. They waved the landing signals while standing on the runways. They lit signal fires and torches to light up runways and lighthouses. The cultists thought that the foreigners had some special connection to their own ancestors, who were the only beings powerful enough to produce such riches.

In a form of sympathetic magic, many built life-size mockups of airplanes out of straw, and created new military style landing strips, hoping to attract more airplanes. Ultimately, though these practices did not bring about the return of the god-like airplanes that brought such marvelous cargo during the war, they did serve to eradicate the religious practices that had existed prior to the war.

If anyone is able to find some good photos of this, please comment and post the link! Thanks!

This is absolutely hilarious. Since I was “covering” the whole controversy for a while, I figure I should post this. WARNING: This is highly scatological! Click here to view the clip.

A well-executed concept, but there is no time for character development, so I would instead recommend Hero for a much more exciting example of the “same story from different points of view” idea. 3/5 stars.

We’ve all heard about the Popemobile, but this is a new one… just in time for Easter, it’s the PeepMobile! I saw this at a garage somewhere in the neighborhood of 52nd Street and Lexington Ave.

Isn’t this the ugliest car you’ve ever seen? If you don’t know what peeps are, check out the official website and this hilarious unofficial website.

I was in this crazy store in downtown manhattan yesterday which sold all that junk you see on TV infomercials (”first alert alarm“, “cold heat soldering iron“, the “faraday flashlight“, the “whitelight tooth-whitening kit“, and much much more). They also had a huge pile of porno DVDs for $2 hidden in the back of the store :-). No, I did not buy any!

Anyway, the real highlight of this store was the Extreme Box! As you can see from the pictures, this is a totally unique video gaming experience likely to be the best kept secret in the industry! Why don’t any video game magazines or web sites ever talk about this system? They are probably too scared to talk about it because it is that good. It comes with two controllers and a gun and sells for… I can hardly believe it… $20!!! I couldn’t resist taking a photo.

The funniest thing about this is that the box does not contain a single screenshot or mention of any compatible games! There is absolutely no mention of what games it plays or even what kind of games it plays. It had an “open” button on the console but I tried and could not get it to open. According to this website, it is famicom compatible, but I didn’t see a spot for cartridges and it didn’t say that on the box. Anyhow… look out Microsoft! The Extreme Box might put the X-Box to shame… if someone can figure out how to turn it on!

A fossil was recently found of a fish which had features leading scientists to believe that it may have been on the path towards being able to walk on land.

The scientists described evidence in the forward fins of limbs in the making. There are the beginnings of digits, proto-wrists, elbows and shoulders. The fish also had a flat skull resembling a crocodile’s, a neck, ribs and other parts that were similar to four-legged land animals known as tetrapods.

Regarding the implications for creationism:

While Dr. Shubin’s team played down the fossil’s significance in the raging debate over Darwinian theory, which is opposed mainly by some conservative Christians in the United States, other scientists were not so reticent. They said this should undercut the creationists’ argument that there is no evidence in the fossil record of one kind of creature becoming another kind.

Check out this cool photo of the fish fossil and an artist’s rendition of what the fish might have looked like.

This is kind of sick, but it’s such an interesting story I had to post it. This kid named Justin Berry was 13 years old when he got a webcam and embarked on a twisted 6-year journey that led him to raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars, getting hooked on cocaine, being victim to several molestations, and becoming one of the most popular underaged child porn stars on the Internet.

This New York Times magazine article is incredible and explains the whole thing in detail. Justin is now in the process of finding out why only 1 of the 1500 perverts who he named to the government has been arrested. See this AP story for details on that. Why would the government be unable to apprehend these people? This even more disturbing than knowing these people are out there to begin with!

Another interesting side of this story is regarding responsibility… was it Justin’s responsibility to know not to get involved in this kind of behavior? Or was it his parents’ responsibility? I have to blame the parents… he was only 13. He was living with his mom and stepdad at the time, and the stepdad disappeared after a few years. Amazingly, when he contacted Justin and flew him to Mexico to join him, Justin told him about the porn site he was running and his stepdad actually helped him start a new porn site in Mexico! See the Times magazine article for details! This is the most bizarre story I’ve heard in years.

I never thought I’d see this, but massive throngs of Hasidic Jews are rioting in Brooklyn! They even set a car on fire!

On TV they said he was over 80 years old, but in this article they say he is 75. Who knows what’s going on, but regardless, this is an impressive show of solidarity.

Hopefully this will be a fun detour from the usual seriousness on this weblog.

I was wondering what ever happened to those vicious anti-semitic cartoons that the Israelis were promising… here is the website that is collecting them. Most of them were pretty mild but there are a few which are particularly scathing. I think maybe it’s hard to find them to be so shocking because I am already so accustomed to Jews making fun at themselves!