Friday Fun Video: A New Song From Eric Idle and John Cleese

Syria In Images

It's gotten to the point that I can no longer find polite words necessary to discuss the Syria fiasco, which seems to get more insane by the second.  So I resort to images.

Basically what the Obama Administration has created:

How the Obama Administration thinks it's doing:

How Assad and Putin think they're doing:

How people who care about actual foreign policy and national security are feeling:

How the media will try to present this to the public as some kind of Obama victory:

The increasingly-clear winner:

How I'm feeling:

A video bonus, since someone has now called this "Monty Python's Flying Damascus."
Look, at this point you either laugh or you cry.

And There Was Much Rejoicing: the Monty Python iPad App

Hooray!  (Take a look, O Dignified Rant!)  The new iPad app comes right on time for today's release of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" on glorious Blu-ray.  Did all you gentle readers know it only took 28 days to film this comedy classic?  Here's a hint of the fun in the app:

Schadenfreude: Dissension at Occupy Wall Street

Check it out: now they are arguing about ... money.  And drumming.  And money for drumming.  My personal favorite line from the story is one protester complaining about homeless people who "feel entitled" to the protesters' things and come to mooch.  The utter lack of self-awareness is staggering.  Meanwhile, the disgruntled drummers are threatening to break away and form their own splinter group.  I'm sorry, I laughed out loud and thought of:

Life Imitates Monty Python: The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog Lives!

Is this one of the greatest images ever to hit the Internet or what?

Energy Debate Rant and the "Addiction to Oil"

Hear, hear.  Part of the salvo:

You know what I can’t stand to hear about anymore? That we Americans are addicted to oil. It’s a smarmy term  that tries to couch an economic and environmental argument in pathological terms. ... It does nobody any good to try and debate economic and logistical necessities while using terminology to imply people who disagree with your view are mentally ill.

But what do I know?  I'm just another bitter stupid racist clinging to my guns and Bible who wants to push granny off a cliff and destroy the earth by emitting carbon with my Internet searches. Or something.  Hey, I'm just 'angin' onto outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic an' social differences in our society!

Friday Fun Video: The Monty Python "Bright Side of Life" Sing-Along

It's been a tough week on campus for everyone.  We could use a tiny respite and a laugh courtesy of Monty Python before going back to our books! ... Slight language warning.

Awesomeness: The Best Comment Thread Ever

Via Transterrestrial Musings comes this link. Oh, the actual blog post doesn't even matter. What you want is the comment thread on it. The first commenter left this statement:

As much as I hate the recent developments in airport “security”, I feel sorry for most TSA personel. They didn’t ask for any of this, they probably realize just how pointless their work is, and every man and his dog now hates their a**. 

Aside from a couple of perverts (who are to be found pretty much everywhere), most of these guys get to choose between rolling with the entire thing against their choosing or losing their job. 

…and seriously, where are you going to go if the TSA fires you!?

In response to this silliness, other commenters left gems like these:

As much as I hate the recent developments on Alderran, I feel sorry for all those stormtroopers. They didn’t ask for any of this and they probably realize just how pointless their work is, and every man and wookie now hates their a**. 

Aside from a few real sith lords (who are to be found pretty much everywhere) most of these guys get to choose between rolling with the entire Empire against their choosing, or being frozen in carbonite. 

And seriously, were are you going to go if you get choked to death on the bridge of a star destroyer?
***
As much as I hate the recent developments in Mordor, I feel sorry for most Orcs. They didn’t ask for any of this, they probably realize just how pointless their work is, and every man (and dwarf, elf, and hobbit) and his dog now hates their a**. 

Aside from a few Uruk-hai (who are to be found pretty much everywhere), most of these guys get to choose between rolling with the entire hoarde against their choosing or being eaten by their comrades. 

And seriously, where are you going to go if Sauron loses the War of the Ring?
***
As much as I hate recent developments in the time-space continuum, I feel sorry for most Daleks. They didn’t ask for any of this. They probably realize just how pointless their work is, and every Time Lord and his K-9 hates their a**. 

Aside from a couple of Skaro cultists, most of these guys get to choose between “Exterminate! Exterminate!,” or losing their jobs to Cybermen. 

And seriously, where are you going to go if The Doctor shows up in his TARDIS?
***
As much as I hate the recent developments at Initech, I feel sorry for Lumburgh. He didn’t ask for any of this. He probably realizes how pointless his work is, and how Michael, Samir, and Peter now hate his a**. 

Aside from efficiency experts and consultants who love to fire people (and are to be found pretty much everywhere), most of the people at Initech get to choose between rolling with the entire thing against their choosing or being downsized. 

And seriously, where are you going to work after Initech? Flingers?

The entire comment thread is full of comedy gold.  It's delightfully smart comedy gold too for the most part, with references ranging all over pop culture and history and literature and current events to include, among other things, the Battle of Rorke's Drift, Château d’If, Beowulf, and the emperor Nero.  My absolute favorite two, though, are after the fold.

History Nerd Fun: 10 Reasons to Go Back to the Dark Ages

This is a hilarious list.  Oh, never mind the fact that mortality rates for everybody were sky-high!  Dark Age denizens had organic veggies and plenty of exercise!  They had low unemployment and no obnoxious PAC lobbyists!  (Nope, they just had serfdom, nepotism, simony, indulgences, witch hunts, Viking raids, the Black Death, rampant illiteracy, no antibiotics, no indoor plumbing or electricity, and people like the Borgias calling the shots!  Plus no high-speed wireless Internet access!  Oh, the humanity.)

"Help, help, I'm being repressed!"

Quote of the Day: "a gross abdication of responsibility"

Read this commentary on Wisconsin's runaway politicians.  Anyone else thinking of Brave Sir Robin?

Forgotten History: Viking Navigation

Cool!  OK, I just have to add that reading the references is in itself a wee bit amusing.  See for instance: "Gábor Horváth, an optics researcher at Eötvös University in Budapest, and Susanne Åkesson, a migration ecologist from Lund University, Sweden ..."

Now I can't help myself:

Wik
Alsø wik
Alsø alsø wik
Wi nøt trei a høliday in Sweden this yer?
See the løveli lakes
The wonderful telephøne system
And mani interesting furry animals
Including the majestic møøse
A Møøse once bit my sister ...
Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti

Life Imitates Monty Python: Government-o-crats In Denial

You can read this, this, or this, or you can simply acknowledge the pithy wit of Dignified Rant, who captures the entire scenario perfectly with a blog post delightfully entitled "'Tis But A Scratch."

Nerd News: UK Claims of Discovering King Arthur's Round Table

Well, here's the news story ... but my Spidey sense  nerd instinct is to be completely skeptical until I see way more evidence.  My finger is on the big red "BS!" button.  (It's rather like the "Armageddon" button, only more fun.)  Aaaaand now I have the sudden desire to watch Monty Python.

Nerd Fun: The Philosophy World Cup Final, Germany vs. Greece

I need a break from the ObamaCare health care reform debacle. Here's some hilarity from (who else?) Monty Python:

MM's Response to the Health Care Debacle

This seems weirdly appropriate to the current mess.

As Mark Steyn said, "Happy Dependence Day." All those cheerleaders for this execrable health care "reform," happily sticking it to the American taxpayer while mangling the very idea of limited government and individual freedoms and plunging us all into an abyss of debt, might as well be telling the angry citizenry to smile and whistle while it becomes tax-serfs.

I'll say, though, the actual bright side might well be the inevitable challenges to the constitutionality of this behemoth. Oh, and these thoughts too.

Satire Alert: Weird Winter Olympic Sports

The British wags at the Daily Mash take aim at all those wonderfully weird winter Olympic sports and the Nordic athletes who love them.

(Be careful out there when you're trying all this, folks. Mynd you, møøse bites Kan be pretty nasti!)

Indonesian Octopus + Coconut Shells = Amazing Zoology News

Everyone's been raving about the Indonesian octopus that uses coconut shells as tools. It *is* really cool.

UPDATE: This might answer the question of whether coconuts migrate.

Best Blog Post Title of the Day: "Bring Me a Shrubbery!"

The blog post is referring to ClimateGate and a tree in Siberia that is supposedly "the most influential tree in the world."

I'm utterly tickled at the Monty Python reference.

The HopeChange Chronicles: Bailing on Missile Defense and Eastern European Allies

UGH! I was all set to rant, but I see that Dignified Rant has the best analysis yet (and best use of Monty Python on the topic) of our utterly feckless and miserably gutless and stupid foreign policy that can't seem to tell friend from foe.

The Czechs and Poles are not happy, and they are quite right. Putin must be grinning like the Cheshire Cat. The timing of all this is simply too much. This administration's foreign policy antics are worse than the Keystone Cops, and they would be uproariously laughable if the stakes weren't so high. I'll even throw a bone to the Cine-Sib and quote Megatron: "This is bad comedy."

UPDATE: More here and here.

Silly Video Fun: Variations on a Theme (the Camelot Song!)

For your entertainment on this cold and wet Friday afternoon, I give you...

The classic sequence from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail":

The scene created entirely from Lego toys:

Finally, in honor of the Cinema-Mad Sibling, La Parisienne, and my dear old school friend Alessandra d'Ambrosio, here is the silly marriage of Monty Python and the original series of "Star Trek":