Thank God for Jon

What will they make up next? This is a fun game...

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Happy Monday

Happy to be alive? This guy would say he was... This video captures his burial and rescue from an avalanche. Amazing stuff. He was only buried for four minutes. He's a very lucky man...

Avalanche Skier POV Helmet Cam Burial & Rescue in Haines, Alaska from Chappy on Vimeo.

A full account of his ordeal can be found here.

A sample:

This was a decent sized avalanche. 1,500 feet the dude fell in a little over 20 seconds. The crown was about 1 - 1.5m. The chute that he got sucked through to the skier's right was flanked on either side by cliff bands that were about 30m tall. He luckily didn't break any bones and obviously didn't hit anything on the run out.

He was only buried for 4 and a half minutes which is incredibly short. I cannot stress these next sentences enough; that in and of itself to be unburied in ONLY 4:28 is miraculous if you have any understanding of being caught in an avalanche and what it takes to be found. It could literally be some kind of "world record" just on how good the guide and supporting cast of other skiers was in getting to him. It also shows why you should ALWAYS be going with people trained in avalanche rescue / first aid....as well as why you'd want to be going with a guided heli operation. Sure this was terrifying for him, but he would've probably been dead if not for going with a guide.

He also got very lucky to be honest. In the time that he's buried, you can hear his breathing already accelerate. The ruffling noise back and forth is his chest rising and falling and the noise that his jacket makes. The intermittent whimpering noise you hear is him trying to swallow and get some air since the avalung wasn't fully in his mouth and instead just to the corner of his mouth. Still sends chills up the back of my neck. Oh...the luck? They located him so fast because his right glove came off just before he came completely to rest and there was an excellent visual of course.

A Song for Saturday

I'm not a huge Jay-Z guy, but every once in a while he hits a home run.

To me, this is his best song in years. It makes me wish I felt a bond to a place as much as he does.

I love this performance of it mainly for the entrance. Its grand in its simplicity.

Enjoy.

Jay-Z - New Music - More Music Videos

The lyrics, if you don't have a hip-hop ear:

Yeah, Imma up at Brooklyn,
now Im down in Tribeca,
right next to DeNiro,
But i’ll be hood forever,
I’m the new Sinatra,
and since i made it here,
i can make it anywhere,
yeah they love me everywhere,
i used to cop in Harlem,
all of my dominicanos
right there up on broadway,
brought me back to that McDonalds,
took it to my stash spot,
Five Sixty Stage street,
catch me in the kitchen like a simmons whipping pastry,
cruising down 8th street,
off white lexus,
driving so slow but BK is from Texas,
me I’m up at Bedsty,
home of that boy Biggie,
now i live on billboard,
and i brought my boys with me,
say wat up to Ty Ty, still sipping Malta
sitting courtside Knicks and Nets give me high fives,
N-gga i be spiked out, i can trip a referee,
tell by my attitude that I most definitely from…

[Alicia Keys]
In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
these streets will make you feel brand new,
big lights will inspire you,
lets here it for New York, New York, New York

[Jay-Z]
I made you hot n-gga,
Catch me at the X with OG at a Yankee game,
sh-t i made the yankee hat more famous than a yankee can,
you should know I bleed Blue, but I aint a crip tho,
but i got a gang of n-ggas walking with my click though,
welcome to the melting pot,
corners where we selling rocks,
afrika bambaataa sh-t,
home of the hip hop,
yellow cap, gypsy cap, dollar cab, holla back,
for foreigners it aint fitted they forgot how to act,
8 million stories out there and their naked,
cities is a pity half of y’all won’t make it,
me i gotta plug Special Ed "i got it made,"
If Jesus payin LeBron, I’m paying Dwayne Wade,
3 dice cee-lo
3 card marley,
labor day parade, rest in peace Bob Marley,
Statue of Liberty, long live the World trade,
long live the king yo,
I’m from the empire state thats…

[Chorus]

In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
these streets will make you feel brand new,
big lights will inspire you,
lets here it for New York, New York, New York
Welcome to the bright light..

[Jay-Z]
Lights is blinding,
girls need blinders
so they can step out of bounds quick,
the side lines is blind with casualties,
who sipping life casually, then gradually become worse,
don’t bite the apple Eve,
caught up in the in crowd,
now your in-style,
and in the winter gets cold en vogue with your skin out,
the city of sin is a pity on a whim,
good girls gone bad, the cities filled with them,
Mommy took a bus trip and now she got her bust out,
everybody ride her, just like a bus route,
Hail Mary to the city your a Virgin,
and Jesus can’t save you life starts when the church ends,
came here for school, graduated to the high life,
ball players, rap stars, addicted to the limelight,
MDMA got you feeling like a champion,
the city never sleeps better slip you a Ambien

[Chorus]

In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
these streets will make you feel brand new,
big lights will inspire you,
lets here it for New York, New York, New York


[Alicia Keys]
One hand in the air for the big city,
Street lights, big dreams all looking pretty,
no place in the World that can compare,
Put your lighters in the air, everybody say yeaaahh
come on, come,
yeah,

[Chorus]

In New York,
Concrete jungle where dreams are made of,
Theres nothing you can’t do,
Now you’re in New York,
these streets will make you feel brand new,
big lights will inspire you,
lets here it for New York, New York, New York

This is what football does to us...

Classic.

New Website of the Week.

Genious!

"Press one for English." Here's a better idea: use Fonolo. It makes the call to that large, impersonal corporation, presses the right buttons and stays on hold for you until a human comes on the line. Then your phone rings and voilà, you can talk to a live person about your account. Fonolo even gives you the option to record your conversation as an MP3, just in case your chat with customer support becomes an argument. Is this for real? Totally! How does it know what you want it to accomplish? Fonolo shows you a visual map of the phone trees of various big companies and allows you to pick your point of entry. A computer does the rest.

Happy Monday

(A 2-year-old pug named Bentley competes in the fourth annual Helen Woodward Animal Center Surf Dog Surf-A-Thon in Del Mar, Calif.)

May your Monday be as happy as this dog looks.

Fox feeling left out

Check out the statement from the White house! Ouch!





Whats funny is the idea that they can sit around a table "debating" the merits of the President's strategy, as if anyone there would have the guts to say "You know what? Obama has a point. Him leaving us out is a great move."

And if we all can agree that that statement will never be uttered on Fox, than all we have here is some ego stroking at the President's expense. But hey, this is America. Thats what we do.

Party on, Fox.

A Song for Saturday

I can't explain why I like this band so much. I just do.

Sometimes you just feel it...

"You Lie" Explained

Also, this guy does a great James Carville:

Only Bush Can Fix It

Andrew's letter to the former President.

The premise:

I have come to accept that it would be too damaging and polarizing to the American polity to launch legal prosecutions against you, and deeply unfair to solely prosecute those acting on your orders or in your name. President Obama’s decision thus far to avoid such prosecutions is a pragmatic and bipartisan one in a time of war, as is your principled refusal to criticize him publicly in his first months. But moving on without actually confronting or addressing the very grave evidence of systematic abuse and torture under your administration poses profound future dangers. It gives the impression that nothing immoral or illegal took place. Indeed, since leaving office, your own vice president has even bragged of these interrogation techniques; and many in your own party threaten to reinstate such policies in the future. Their extreme rhetoric seems likely to shape—to contaminate—history’s view of your presidency, indeed of the Bush name, and the world’s view of America. But my biggest fear is this: in the event of a future attack on the United States, another president will feel tempted, or even politically compelled, to resort to the same brutalizing policy, with the same polarizing, demoralizing, war-crippling results. I am writing you now because it is within your power—and only within your power—to prevent that from happening.

The Devil's Pool

How cool is this:


(Oddee:Victoria Falls is on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. It is 360 feet tall. At the top is a natural rock pool, called Devil's Pool, where the water is relatively calm. From September to December, when the water level is low, you can swim in Devil's Pool. The pictures are bound to make you just a little nervous. Or a lot.)

More amazing pics here.

The Loyal Opposition

Fredomworks, Glenn Beck, and a host of other groups organized a march in washington on saturday to protest big government, high taxes and, well, see for yourself:

A Song for Saturday

Haunting. This is a cover of NIN done right before Cash passed away...

An Inconvenient Truth

(Rep. Joe Wilson, yelling "you lie!" at Pres. Obama during his speech to a joint session of Congress. 9/9/09)

I'm not sure what the most disturbing part of this story is, so, I'll lay out the problems as I see them and you can decide:

1)The simple rudeness of it all. If this guy is supposed to be a leader in our country, what hope can we really have for civil and productive discourse in our country? The disrespect shown here is shameful. This is not the way to disagree.

2)This Wilson fellow is now a folk hero in conservative circles. They've made this guy a poster-child for speaking the truth to power. They're even making t-shirts!! And this probably wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that...

3) WILSON IS DEAD WRONG ON THE FACTS!!! There is no grey area here. The administration has gone to great lengths to make sure this cannot be misinterpreted. It is as clear as day. The fact that we can elect people in this country who seem to be able to operate in some nebulous fact-free universe troubles me deeply.

The ironic thing is that, by shouting out a lie about the president lying, Wilson has forced hundreds of articles to be written about this. And all of them that choose to do any fact checking have to conclude the same thing: Wilson is wrong, Obama was right. Thereby spreading the president's message even further.

He's done Obama's work for him.

In fairness, Wilson apologized for his outburst. To me, he should be apologizing for his ignorance.

Pwned

Consider yourself indoctrinated...

This is what the nutty fringe was all worked up about. Madness...

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When even Newt can't find a bad thing to say about an Obama speech, you know he hit it out of the park...

Happy Monday

Another internet classic:

The Grape Lady.

Its the noise she makes. I'm sorry if this makes me a bad person, but its one of the funniest things I've ever heard:

A Song for Saturday

The King was buried this week. This song is one of his most powerful pleas to the world, in my opinion. You can say all you want about his short-comings and faults, but there is no denying the world is better off while he was around. His death was a loss for us all.

The third verse in this song is its best, Mike asks us a series of questions that need answering:

What about yesterday?
What about the seas?
The heavens are falling down
I can't even breathe
What about empathy?
I need you
What about nature's worth?
It's our planet's womb
What about animals?
We've turned kingdoms to dust
What about elephants?
Have we lost their trust?
What about crying whales?
We're ravaging the seas
What about forest trails?
Burnt despite our pleas
What about the holy land?
Torn apart by creed
What about the common man?
Can't we set him free?
What about children dying?
Can't you hear them cry?
Where did we go wrong?
Someone tell me why
What about baby boy?
What about the days?
What about all their joy?
What about the man?
What about the crying man?
What about Abraham?
What about death again?
Do we give a damn?

The Gonzales Cantata

http://www.gonzalescantata.com/

Make sure you hear the "I don't recall" Aria.

Classic.

Broadstreet review:

Melissa Dunphy’s Gonzales Cantata uses actual transcripts of a 2007 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to transform the tedious machinations of politics into a brilliant work of art. The only thing missing, alas, is a point. Alberto Gonzales facing Arlen Specter isn’t exactly Christ confronting Pontius Pilate.

Your News, Auto-tuned...

And, yes, he really took a chart with a dragon on it to the floor of the Senate...

Marshall. Still the Illest.

From Rapbassment:

Ever since the new "Forever" [listen here] track debuted online last week, since it features Drake, Kanye West, Lil Wayne and Eminem, everyone has been talking about who had the best verse. As we previously reported, the track's producer, Boi-1da, said he felt Drake had the best verse, although he felt Eminem was very close. "Really it’s between Drake and Eminem," he said. "I’ve never seen anybody hold up on a song with Eminem, like usually Eminem blows out. Drake's my dude, and he’s my favorite rapper, but knowing Eminem I thought he was gonna blow by everybody, but Drake came strong. It’s like a toss up. And like that’s never been done before, I never heard a toss up between Eminem, it’s always just Eminem cause he’s a monster."

Well it seems that fans do not agree with producer. In a new poll through XXL Magazine, after only five days and 3500 votes, fans overwhelmingly think that Eminem had the best verse on "Forever" [listen here]. Eminem got 69 percent of the votes while Drake came in second with only 13% followed by Kanye at 10 and Lil Wayne in last with only eight percent. What do you think? Listen Here and let us know! The new song will be featured on the soundtrack to the upcoming LeBron James documentary titled "More Than A Game."

I do like Drake's verse, myself. I've just grown accustomed to Marshall killin' it. Em's verse is superior, but Drake's is a lot of fun to listen to.

Picture of the Day.

(President Barack Obama jokingly points out cake crumbs that Vice President Joe Biden dropped on the floor in the Oval Office following a birthday celebration for the President on Aug. 4, 2009.)

My caption bubble: "Joe! You're not allowed in here anymore! Look at this crap!"

Leave you're own caption in the comments section. The writer of my favorite caption will win a prize...

Rachel Interviews Tom Ridge

Must see stuff.

First off, hats off to Tom. Most republicans want no part of Maddow. You may be tempted to think that is because she's unapologetically liberal, but that's not what I think. I think its because she's very smart, very well prepared and forces you to know what you're talking about if you're going to disagree with her. She won't be snowballed.

Secondly, I love how civil their conversation is. Even when debating really touchy things, they maintain a mutual respect that I've learned to crave in my public discourse. Kudos to both of them for that.

A couple of stand out moments in this interview: 1) He contradicts his own book's desk jacket, which is supposed to be a description of what is in the book. Rachel actually gets him to denounce it. 2) While he's defending the Iraq, Rachel looks him in the eye and tells him "That's why people won't trust you. Because of what you just said." Gutsy.

Enjoy.

(I've only posted 2 of 3 parts. The 3rd segment on Katrina can be found here.)

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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Picture of the Week

Justin Sullivan / Getty
(The Station fire in the mountains north of Los Angeles, one of several blazes currently burning throughout Central and Southern California, has decimated more than 85,000 acres.)

I can't imagine the terror that the people there are dealing with in the face of this monster.