April 2, 2011

Google, YouTube Mark April Fools With Fake Viral Videos | The Blaze
In case you missed it yesterday, Google and YouTube were monkeying around a bit to celebrate April Fool's Day.  YouTube created some fake throwback viral videos from 1911 and added an option to "1911" current YouTube videos.  


Google announced a new feature called "Google Motion"

If you're a gmail user, you may have noticed this announcement at the top of your gmail home page:

New! Gmail Motion^BETA

My favorite was a Google job ad for a "Google Autocompleter"

"Are you passionate about helping people? Are you intuitive? Do you often feel like you know what your friends and family are thinking and can finish their thoughts before they can? Are you an incredibly fast Google searcher? Like, so fast that you can do 20 searches before your mom does 1?"

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Also released on April Fool's Day was a spoof Obama campaign video.  The fine print says "Paid for by the Republican Senatorial Campaign. Not actually approved by President Barack Obama."

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I love these text-to-speech animations....especially when they make a point better than an entire room full of political pundits with PhD's. In this one,  a liberal is trying (unsuccessfully) to defend President Obama's military action in Libya. 

"My labradoodle spends more time deliberating where to lie down than Obama spent on bombing Libya."

Stephen Moore: We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers - WSJ.com: 

"Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.

It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?"

So, I'm wondering if we'd be better off  just scrapping all these high school college-prep programs and instead started teaching students how to fill out government job applications.   Seems promising, right?

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Abortion pills can cause blood clots  - Thaindian News
Just as the FDA is clearing the way to serve up the abortion pill to minor girls without parental input and without a doctor's prescription, we find out that it's even more dangerous than first reported:

"A vascular disease called deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is on the rise and doctors say it has a lot to do with the increase in sales of over-the-counter contraceptive pills.

“DVT is a serious vascular disease where the blood clot is formed in the deep veins that are the blood carriers, usually in the leg,” added Parakh.
With aggressive advertising of over-the-counter contraceptive pills, cases of DVT have also seen a noticeable rise in recent times, believe experts.

According to statistics by the government, the sale of nearly 8.2 million over-the-counter emergency contraceptive pills was reported in 2009, a 250 percent increase over 2008. The pills claim to prevent pregnancy when taken within 72 hours of having unprotected sex."

A girl can't get her ears pierced or take a Tylenol at school without parental permission, but the FDA thinks she should be able to take a powerful hormone that she can buy over the counter at the pharmacy along with her bubble gum and lip gloss. Brilliant.

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Now for some GOOD news!


The tsunami’s last survivor « Hot Air:

 "This wasn’t a rescue mission. After three weeks, they’d long since given up on finding people alive at sea. The coast guard was looking to recover bodies, and even that’s become so hopeless that they may call off the operation after Sunday. But while they were out there scanning the water, something on a floating debris field below them moved. No food, no fresh water — for three weeks. And yet, somehow…"

 

UK Daily Mail

UK Daily Mail

March 26, 2011

Rand Paul on Libyan rebels: Who are these people? - National Review Online

“Some people can debate and caterwaul and say that a no-fly zone is not war, but there will not be many people, in and around the country, who believe that putting U.S. troops on the ground is not war,” Paul says. “I can tell you, absolutely, that I will demand a declaration of war on the Senate floor before any troops set foot in Libya.”

Beyond his constitutional concerns, Paul argues that the Libyan conflict is being waged to support a mostly unknown rebel force. “The question is, who are these people?” he asks. “We know how bad the guy in power is, but do we know that these people are not in favor of radical sharia law? Do we know that they do not think that Israel should be wiped off the map? I am always concerned when we are in favor of people who we know nothing about.” George Will, Pat Buchanan, and Sen. Dick Lugar (R., Ind.), he says, have all raised this important point."

Top 10 names Obama didn't give Libyan action | Washington Examiner: (HT: Dan Phillips) 


10.Operation Nine Months In The Senate Didn't Prepare Me For This

9. Operation Organizing for Libya

8. Operation Double Standard

7. Operation FINE! I'll Do Something

6. Operation Enduring Narcissism

5. Operation So That's What the Red Button Does

4. Operation France Backed Me Into A Corner

3. Operation Start Without Me

2. Operation Unlike Bush Wars This One Is Justified Because Hey Look A Squirrel

1. Operation Aimless Fury


From the "religion of peace"....


 Thousands of Christians Displaced in Ethiopia After Muslim Extremists Torch Churches, Homes - FoxNews.com: 

"Thousands of Christians have been forced to flee their homes in Western Ethiopia after Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.

At least one Christian has been killed, many more have been injured and anywhere from 3,000 to 10,000 have been displaced in the attacks that began March 2 after a Christian in the community of Asendabo was accused of desecrating the Koran."

 FreedomWorks launches ‘Diverse Tea’ | The Daily Caller :

"Former Republican House Majority Leader Dick Armey’s FreedomWorks organization rolled out its Diverse Tea campaign Monday at diverse-tea.com.

FreedomWorks President and CEO Matt Kibbe told The Daily Caller that the program is meant to showcase diversity in the Tea Party movement. The first four members of Diverse Tea highlighted are the Rev. C.L. Bryant, Deneen Borelli, Tito Munoz and Ryan Hecker."

This is an unnecessary distraction from Freedom Works' mission of fiscal responsibility.  The sooner we cease talking about racial divisions and obsessing about skin color, the sooner we will have a color-blind society.  Continuing to focus on it is just feeding the beast of the politics of race and giving fodder to the race baiters. 

Rep. Randy Forbes on our country's Judeo-Christian heritage.  ACLU types are running to their therapists to deal with the trauma of this 4-minute speech that mentions God dozens of times:

 Poll: Most in U.S., except evangelicals, see no divine sign in disasters - USATODAY.com: 

"Nearly six in 10 evangelicals believe God can use natural disasters to send messages — nearly twice the number of Catholics (31%) or mainline Protestants (34%). Evangelicals (53%) are also more than twice as likely as the one in five Catholics or mainline Protestants to believe God punishes nations for the sins of some citizens.

The poll found that a majority (56%) of Americans believe God is in control of the earth, but the idea of God employing Mother Nature to dispense judgment (38% of all Americans) or God punishing entire nations for the sins of a few (29%) has less support..

...Nearly half of Americans (44%) say the increased severity of recent natural disasters is evidence of biblical 'end times,' but a larger share (58%) believe it is evidence of climate change. The only religious group more likely to see natural disasters as evidence of 'end times' (67%) than climate change (52%) is white evangelicals...

The article includes this very wise insight:

...This is tragic, but if you ask (why God allows) earthquakes, you have to ask it anytime that people die. We would have to be prophets of God to know that.'

This is such a great point.  Often, when faced with a tragedy of the proportions we see in Japan, we fail to remember that (according to some estimates), 150,000 people die every single day - dwarfing the number killed in the tsunami in Japan.  So the question is not "Why did God send/allow/cause the earthquake?" but "Why do people die?"  The Bible tells us that it started with the first man, Adam: 

"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned" (Romans 5:12).

This discussion brought to mind a couple of videos I saw last month (HT: Justin Taylor).  Zac Miller went home to be with the Lord in May, 2010 after a short battle with cancer. He made a video about his journey before he died. His wife followed up with a video of her own journey after his death:

The Story of Zac Smith from NewSpring Media on Vimeo.

A Story | Tears of Hope from Adam Kring on Vimeo.

And finally, the inspirational story of a one-legged wrestler who won the national championship: