Weird Al Yankovic’s career took off in the 1980s based in large part on his parodies of Michael Jackson songs – parodies which, it should be noted, Jackson appreciated (and even encouraged). Jackson’s gone but Weird Al lives on, and he continues to riff on both music and culture – in this case, he takes on Craigslist:
Tag: funny videos
Sunday Funnies: Happy Fathers Day
Despite my earlier promise, I couldn’t find anything funny about Jethro Tull. But with today marking the 40th anniversary of the moon landing, I figured out an alternative. Behold the blooper reel from the first movie my Dad and I ever went to – Star Wars.
Sunday Funnies: We can only hope the Sotomayor hearings go like this
Sunday Funnies: Notable Quotables
In honor of finding The Shawshank Redemption at Target for $6.50 today, here are the 100 best movie lines in 200 seconds. It is worth noting the value of simplicity; the most immortal lines of our culture take a mere two seconds each, on average.
Sunday Funnies: Happy Mother’s Day!
In addition to being about 50% of this blog’s audience, Mama Eltringham is a big Beatles fan. In honor of that, this week’s Sunday Funnies draws inspiration from the Fab Four.
Happy Mother’s Day!
(The dubbing is, obviously, a little messed up, but just wait for Father’s Day: by then I’ll surely have a better video that makes fun of Joe Biden to the tune of Aqualung.)
Sunday Funnies: Coup at the UN
Sunday Funnies: State of the Union
With all this talk about government intervention being so direly needed to pull America out of every crisis, my former boss and fellow UMass alum Dan Flynn asks a poignant question: How long before there’s a State of the Union address like this one?
EXCLUSIVE: Preview of tonight’s comments on the stimulus
Okay, maybe President Obama won’t shed the Washington Blue Suit Uniform for Matthew Lesko’s “I want to be the Riddler in Batman III” duds. But Mr. “Free Money for Everyone!” has been paying attention to the legislation passed by President, uh, “Free Money for Everyone!” – and he’s already trying to make money off it, as reported by Mitchell Blatt.
(Of course, Lesko doesn’t report that you can get your own stimulus check from the Bank of Obama.)
More interesting to me will be the tone the President takes tonight. Early reports indicate that the speech will be more forward-looking than his steady drumbeat of sour economic predictions that began before his inauguration; some have called on Obama to sound more positive.
(It will also be interesting to note whether “forward-looking” will mean more jabs at the previous administration; my money is on “yes.”)
From its President, the country sure could use some good news. But politics is about managing expectations – so the more dire the current economic situation appears to be, the more credit Obama can take when the economy ticks back upward in a few years – likely just in time for his re-election.
It’s a little like Groundhog Day (the holiday, not the movie): if during tonight’s speech, the President sees a shadow, it means four more years of campaigning-by-governing.
Sunday Funnies: Should the Government Stop Throwing Money Into a Giant Hole?
Economic Policy presented by the Kids in the Hall
With all the talk about the stimulus package this week, I thought it might be useful to review some basic concepts of government intervention in the economy.
First off, government spending programs are frequently wasteful – Canadian broadcasting, for instance, is all publicly funded:
Second, handout programs may seem helpful to some people, but may have different consequences for others:
Finally, it’s nice to have outside-the-box thinking when dealing with problems, but eventually the bills will come due:
Jim Eltringham 