In yet another show of just how out of touch they are with the modern youth, MTV has shown how the Grammys will NOT nominate Lady Gaga for Best New Artist.  I mean, she all ready won the VMA award for the same,  because as MTV says -

Few new artists in recent years have made an impact on the pop music scene as quickly as Lady Gaga

And how true that is. Because the pop music scene is such a wonderfully deep arena full of vastly talented people. But she stands above them all. Lady Gaga represents everything about modern pop culture – mediocrity, banality, redundancy, and fashion before talent. And how are we supposed to know who we should be praising if the people who awarded Milli Vanilli and Jethro Tull awards won’t honor her with another misplaced award? Look, Madonna isn’t getting any younger, we need another slutty white girl wearing ridiculous looking fashion to make up for generic music and 8th grade lyrics. And we all know artists like K’naan (I mean, who wants to listen to music about politics, that shit is depressing! and I don’t like to think), or Radiohead (Too many weird noises! His voice is weird), or Sigur Ros (What the hell are they saying, anyway? I want to be able to repeat every word of a song the first time I hear it) are just weird music for those weird art kids. I just wanna dance without having to think that there’s a world beyond my little bubble.

In case you’ve lived on a secluded island for the last couple of years, in which case, Hello! And how can I get there?, you have probably heard of Conservapedia, brainemptyshell project of Andrew Schlafly, son of historically unimportant right wing non figure Phyllis Schlafly, a woman unaware of the irony of a woman opposing the ERA. An examination of their “Commandments” reveals criminal prosecutions to the fullest extent for anyone who may change their site around. This includes

Vandalism is punishable up to 10 years in jail per 18 USC § 1030. Harassment is punishable by 2 years in jail per 47 USC § 223. The IP addresses of vandals will be reported to authorities. That includes your employer and your local prosecutor.

That’s utter professionalism. The phrasing sounds like the same language used by the people who try to prosecute you for walking on “their” sidewalk. I’m sure federal authorities are just itching to arrest the SOB who vandalizes conservapedias well written articles on ID, and liberalism.

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Once again, Mr. Obama is being faulted for bowing to a foreign leader.  Here is the video of our president briefly genuflecting to Emperor Akihito of Japan.

Barack Obama bows to Japan’s Emperor Akihito

All the president is doing is showing his respect for another culture’s traditions.  I happen to believe that many traditions are antiquated nonsense, such as saying “god bless you” after someone sneezes, but a diplomatic rendezvous with one of the world’s most powerful leaders is not the best platform to assert your views on outdated conventions.

Critics of Obama’s graceful curtsy can call it a sign of weakness all they want; it only shows how cripplingly insecure they really are.  I doubt the president’s momentary bending at waist will trigger a massive overthrow of the United States government.

“He bowed to the emperor? That’s the sign we’ve been waiting for! Bust out the nukes boys.”

Respectfully bowing is the very least of our worries.  If another country wanted to destroy our nation, I’m sure we’ve given them plenty of other, more relevant reasons, such as the two wars we are currently fighting, or the career of Nicolas Cage.  And let’s not forget the hand-holding stroll through a park former President Bush took with Saudi King Abdullah.  At least Obama didn’t treat the emperor like a nursing home resident.

So I think our country is going to be just fine.  No Pearl Harbor 2 (Pearl Harder), and no more Pokemon designed to secretly poison our youth against us.  After all, this country did nuke the hell out of two Japanese cities not that long ago – the least we can do is be a little nice.

There’s really only one video I’ve seen this week that’s worth repeating (besides Rep. Buyer’s amazing interview) -

1) Auto Tune the News

But in honor of the recent IU conference on Black impact on Rock , I thought that it was worth mentioning the rapper from “the only place more dangerous than Kandahar,  and that’s kind of hard”,

2)  Somalia

It’s nice to know there’s modern music out there that’s not autotuned and doin the stanky leg.

In my previous post, I linked to an interview of Buyer from CBS, but I missed THIS link to an amazing video of him singing in session about smoking lettuce.  There’s also a cameo by Joe Biden. No further words could do this video justice.

Lou Dobbs has left CNN. As mentioned in the NYT article, CNN president Jonathan Klein had the audacity to ask Mr. Dobbs to

vent his opinions on radio and anchor an objective newscast on television, or he could leave CNN.

This is just another glaring example of the Liberal Media railroading a conservative. Asking a “journalist” to anchor news objectively? I mean, if Lou Dobbs, on top of having a nationally syndicated radio show, can’t give voice to the fact that our Honorable President may, or may not, be a Kenyan, or that all Immigrants are evil, who will? Who will give voice to truth? Who will speak for the little man? If a man can’t give creedence on national television news to all ready discredited movements when his own network and other major media sources have given up on it, who will?

But Dobbs has been shown to be a man of integriy. And I’m sure this is about freedom of speech. not about leaving the lowest rated network, and finding new employment. Just because you meet with the head of the #1 network, just as another former CNN talking head did, who now makes millions upon millions the same way, doesn’t mean anything.

News that I missed…

The Buenos Aires Herald reported that the Argentinian Supreme court ruled that marijuana will no longer be treated as a criminal offense for users, stating that

“…it is unconstitutional to punish marijuana consumers, if that action does not harm third parties. The decision would put an end to a long-term debate, in which users had claimed that the incumbent drug law violated privacy rights.”

Surprisingly, this is in accord with their federal government, who held

“The government has backed  the initiative to decriminalize drug consumers, as it would allow the government to focus its policies on drug trafficking networks instead of users. Cabinet Chief Aníbal Fernández said the decriminalization would allow users “to be treated as addicts instead of criminals.”

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Overwhelmingly no! At least, that is, according to a new poll by NPR.  In fact, with nearly 1.8 million votes saying no currently, compared to only 200k voting yes, clearly they are not biased, if even NPR listeners say no. Well, except that it turns out that conservatives sent out mass emails to “win” the poll, similar to the tactics used by  the ‘great’ band Panic at the Disco to procure similar results to name their album as Npr’s Album of the year last year.

In case you happened to miss them,  these have to be two of the best things I’ve seen this week.

One: Cartman singing a much less terrible version, somehow guitar hero made, of poker face to a montage of Stan fighting whalers.

Two: The Box parody – Funny or Die.

Salon had a great piece on Michelle Bachmann and the wingnut teabag teaparty group protest over the health bill on Thursday.  I’ll leave the obvious jokes here to others, and point out the main thing that caught me off guard -

“C-list Hollywood celebrities (Jon Voigt, John “Cliff Clavin” Ratzenberger) made their way to the microphone to gleefully bash President Obama, Pelosi and everything about the healthcare legislation”.

I knew Jon Voight has made a habit of going on right wing shows and making a fool of himself, just as much as Ben Stein, Dennis Miller (that’s nothing new at all) and even Coach!? have done.  But now Cliff Clavin is out as a wingnut! Geez. Way to let me down Cliff. You do realize that the Postal Service is the definition of Socialism, right? But I guess it doesn’t matter. After all, you’re not a mail man, you just played one on tv. Next to Sideshow Bob. Stalwart leader of Springfield Republicans and previously elected Mayor.