What this showed to me, above all, is why local news is so important. It’s probably more important now than it’s ever been The journalists working in these markets seem to be more willing to pose harder questions because they have no access to lose. It makes one wonder if the reporter/stenographers in the national media, especially the White House press corps, ever had the balls this guy has. And what’s sad is that he doesn’t even really have big balls, he’s just doing his job. That’s what counts for journalistic courage these days: just doing your fucking job.
Another writes:
Baca did a ten-part month-long investigation of the Super Adventure Club and the Anonymous protests. It’s the same brand of real journalism and it’s riveting viewing. The guy is the real deal, and needs more exposure. Props to KESQ for backing him, too.
When she is not delivering fiery speeches at right-wing conference, Parker has been busy suing the White House over its efforts to rebut misinformation regarding health care reform and warning that marriage equality in Washington DC would lead to the spread of HIV and was akin to thinking "that serving up another glass of wine is the way to help a drunk" all while declaring that "it should concern every American as we watch our nation's capital city transform officially into Sodom."
If you want to see Kory Teneycke in a discussion about the new channel, please watch this YouTube clip from CBC yesterday. This is what passes for contentious debate up here. If Teneycke thinks that he will import the Fox model and see much success, I believe he's sorely mistaken. I can tell you that there really is not much appetite for that in Canada. And I say that as a born and bred Calgarian.
And I for one don’t want soccer in the US to become as popular as the NFL or even basketball. I love that I can buy a season ticket package for my local team for the cost of one seat at an NFL game. I love that I can watch nearly any soccer I game I want from any league in the world on ESPN, FSC or GolTV. I love that the US players are hard-working, honest guys who play for each other and hustle until the last whistle. I love that I can listen to podcasts from the US or the UK about the World Cup or read post-game analysis from all corners of the world. I love that when my kids met midfielder Stuart Holden just weeks before the World Cup, he treated them with genuine respect and affection. I love that our underdog team can beat mighty Spain and draw over-rated England.
I’m afraid if soccer ever does “blow up” in the US, so much of what I love about the game in the US won’t be true any more.
Chris Orr puts his finger on the studio's secret to success: "constant revision and incremental perfectionism":
It's a luxury unique to animation, though one of which few animators take comparable advantage. Live-action filmmakers are essentially slaves to a shooting schedule. They go in with a script, storyboards, etc., and come out, several weeks or a few months later, with the footage they will assemble into a motion picture. Once the sets are broken down and the cast-members scatter to their subsequent projects, that's pretty much that, barring a relatively rare, extremely costly re-shoot. Any subsequent "eurekas!" on the part of the filmmakers are likely to be unrealized.
He also reviews the latest Toy Story and flirts with the future of the cineplex.
The latest target is a 34% cut [in emissions], compared to 1990 levels, by 2020.
When the good folk at Cambridge Econometrics fed this requirement into their model, it began spitting out prices of many hundreds of pounds per ton, far beyond anything that could be seen as politically plausible by even the most starry-eyed environmentalist. Indeed, the prices were so high that they were pushing up against the limits of the model, and any numbers generated would have to be taken with a big dollop of salt. The main reason, said the firm's analysts, was the time it takes to do things like building nuclear power stations and converting large chunks of Britain's transport to run on electricity. It just isn't possible to do enough in a decade, no matter how high you crank the carbon price.
This is the second trip of my home made high altitude weather balloon photography project, Pacific Star. The balloon was launched at 5:37pm (PST) from Oxnard, CA and reached an altitude of 125,000 feet snapping photos and recording video along the way.
Who else would fall for an hysterical conspiracy theory about the feds and the Internet? Here's Insta's knee jerking:
If they shut down the Internet, I’m getting out my gun. And I think everyone should take it as a signal to do the same — because one way or the other, it means the country’s under attack.
He soon realizes he's been had, although characteristically fails to take responsibility for the error. Stewart Baker:
There’s an Internet kill switch all right, but it ain’t in Washington. It’s in Beijing and Moscow. And soon in Pyongyang. The Lieberman-Collins-Carper bill, which might take the kill switch away from our foreign adversaries, will soon have bipartisan support in the House.
Anyone with an ear for music and a sense of humor can instantly tell that Gaga was doing a parody of Swedish pop music when she wrote and recorded “Alejandro.” It is obviously a satire and homage to “Don’t Turn Around” and “Fernando.” There is no copying here – just humor, admiration and genius.
Another writes:
I heard the same Ace of Base influence in Alejandro and I think it's intentional. To me, her music is like a super mash-up of all the great female pop acts dating all the way back to the disco era. She has the presence of Cher, the sugary pop stylings of ABBA, the provocative confidence of Madonna, the vocal courage of Christina (if not the same level of chops), the ability to pick an irresistible beat a la Britney, and the euro-electro-techno-pop sensibility of a Cascada or, yes, Ace of Base. The genius of Lady Gaga is that she takes only the best pieces from each artist and combines them to form a sound that is both completely new and reassuringly familiar.
To critique her as "unoriginal" reminds me of what people used to say about sampling in hip-hop.
As a pop-music apologist, I often find myself fighting with my friends and pretty much anyone else who refuses to look at pop in a complex, critical way. Ten years ago I was defending Britney and Christina and even the Backstreet Boys for making great pop music. Now it's the same with Lady Gaga. How can anyone not appreciate the power of a perfectly crafted pop song? To me, being unable to appreciate making new songs from old sounds is just a crazy mindset to have when thinking about modern music. The question is, does the beat get you or not? Do you nod your head or tap your foot? That's good music.
Another:
It's important to note that all of Gaga’s videos and songs make strong references to other artists that she admires. Shout-outs to Madonna, Michael Jackson, Quentin Tarantino, and the list goes on. It’s fun, outrageous, over the top joyful music, mixed with seriousness about being yourself – no matter how weird or freaky.
Another passes along an Idolator post from last August:
Yesterday the news went around that Irish dance innovator Roisin Murphy had called out the steamroller that is Lady GaGa for ripping off her style, and the speaking-up was cheered, as the similarities between the two performers’ looks had been a point of contention for a while among connoisseurs of really good pop music.
As it turned out, though, Murphy was in fact the victim of another game of Press Telephone, and issued a statement yesterday entitled “STOP PRESS! WHEN SHOULDER PADS CLASH!!” It read, in part, “I respect Lady Gaga’s work as an artist and as a fellow fashion icon. She is a very talented performer, playing the piano, singing live and dancing too. I Don’t Care about Shoulder pads!”
Of course, Murphy’s lack of being bothered didn’t stop a member of Oh No They Didn’t from putting together a matrix of Roisin and GaGa similarities. And, well… it’s very striking, to say the least.
That's the title of a gripping talk by Ed Moses, director of the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore Labs. I'm not qualified to judge this scientifically – maybe some readers are – but that sure would be nice, wouldn't? Money quote from a summary of the lecture by Stewart Brand:
The question, Moses said, is "Can we build a miniature Sun on Earth?" The recipe involves a peppercorn-size target of hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium heated to 200 million degrees Fahrenheit for a couple billionths of a second. To get that micro-blast of heat, the National Ignition Facility (NIF) uses lasers—coherent light—at a massive scale. Laser engineer Moses notes that photons are perfect for the job: "no mass, no charge, just energy."
Moses ran a dramatic video showing how a shot at the NIF works. 20-foot-long slugs of amplified coherent light (10 nanoseconds) travel 1,500 yards and converge simultaneously through 192 beams on the tiny target, compressing and heating it to fusion ignition, with a yield of energy 10 to 100 times of what goes into it. Successful early test shots suggest that the NIF will achieve the first ignition within the next few months, and that shot will be heard round the world.
I've long believed, given my somewhat grim view of human nature, that only a new energy technology would wean us off fossil fuels. Many have starts and stops and I can only hope this one pans out. But can you imagine a world in which we didn't have to drill into the earth or bow to Islamists or risk global war with a long-term death struggle for finite resources?
The Dish 