Don't you just love it when someone who deserves it gets smacked down, hard? I know I do.
We've talked about Chris Leavins here before. If you remember he runs a web show called Cute With Chris where he invites people to share images of cute animals. What makes the show work is how sardonic Chris is, having to deal with so many animal nuts every day, flooding his inbox. They love it, and you can tell underneath he enjoys himself too. If nothing else it provides a good platform for his wry comic wit.
Chris has also been known to use his platform to illustrate how lame song lyrics can be. Case in point:
All in good fun as you can see, but someone decided that it might be more fun to start a flame war over this little skit.
Baaad idea.
Here's how Chris handles it. I hope you've been to the bathroom before watching this...
Check and mate! Suck it, Tonya!
And that's just one of many well deserved, beautifully executed smack-downs Chris has dispensed in the history of the show. Might be a while before I post the next in this series so go check them out for yourself if you're just itching for more carnage.
Part 2 of this post is something a little more serious, so if you're not in the mood for that come back later when you are ready. It deals with those deluded conspiracy nuts, the 9/11 "Truthers"(ie. deniers).
You've probably heard of their pseudo-documentary Loose Change. I just recently got through watching a point by point rebuttal that uses logic and evidence to shine a light on their so-called truth, dismantling their arguments one by one and showing them for the intellectual lightweights they happen to be.
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with asking questions when you have some doubts, but when the answers plainly show you what, how and why, time and time again, the proper thing to do is correct your thinking and be wiser for it.
Not so with conspiracy nuts. They've built their lives around this fallacy to the point where they can't concede a thing, lest they have to admit to themselves what fools they've been. Instead, they maintain their poorly plotted course, revealing them to be even bigger fools.
Personally, I find their crusade to be sick. What they are doing is insulting to the memory of those so tragically lost and the ones who mourn them.
You might want to store this one away for when you have a few hours to go through it, or alternatively search it out on Google Video and go through its 20 parts bit by bit when you have the time.
I'll leave you with the close to 3 hour embedded video and the words of Brian Dunning: "Always remember: Separate pieces of poor evidence don't aggregate together into a single piece of good evidence. You can stack cowpies as high as you want, but they won't turn into a bar of gold."
The aptly titled, Screw Loose Change :
Sorry if that made things a little too serious for you. I know! Backtrack up to the first half of this entry and go visit Chris and his array of puppies and kittens. I promise you'll be smiling again in no time!
Showing posts with label 9/11. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 9/11. Show all posts
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Is There An Upper Limit To Coincidence?
Whilst drafting this post about coincidence, wouldn't you know it, a couple of coincidences occurred!
The other day I wrote about the mash-up trailer for The Shining. The next time I went to visit my favorite capping site, which movie do you think was currently playing on the schedule? You guessed it. The Shining. The fact that this happened whilst I was drafting a post about coincidences is in itself ANOTHER coincidence!
Life is strange.
Anyway. Onto the post as it was originally intended--
A bit of a darker theme to today's post as it has something to do with the 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center. Don't worry, this isn't going to be another flogged-to-death opinion about the mayhem that occurred that day. Instead, I'm going to focus on an eerie coincidence.
When coincidences crop up they can really do a number on you and it can be very easy to read more into what has occurred than was there to begin with. I try not to let myself do that. Either there's a simple explanation I've failed to notice that only makes it seem like a coincidence has occurred, or what we're dealing with might be a genuine, bona-fide, 24 Karat, real McCoy coincidence. That's nothing to be afraid of. Statistically speaking, it would be very strange if there weren't any coincidences in our lives.
The following anecdote on coincidence I've been carrying around for a while now. The context makes it pretty hard to forget. Here's how it goes:
On the morning of September 11, 2001 you could walk into a music store in the U.S. and pick up the latest CD from prog-metal supergroup Dream Theater. Of all the factors that go into deciding the release date of a product, this one's just happened to align with that exact date.
There were probably a great many other products slated for release to consumers on 9/11. So, no great coincidence here, really. At least, not yet.
A year before, Dream Theater had played a live date in New York City. The set included a track by track performance of their previous studio album - a concept album titled Scenes From A Memory. They had recorded the event and set about preparing it for release as a live album. It seemed a fitting choice, then, that when the album was released it should feature cover artwork depicting the iconic New York City skyline, with the Twin Towers prominently featured--
Ablaze.
An unsavory coincidence; sure. And more than enough to warrant pulling the album from circulation for a makeover. But, the thing is -- we're still not done.
Because the album was a live presentation of Scenes From A Memory it made good sense to give it a title that implied as much. Unfortunately, the chosen title would mimick a phrase the world would hear again and again as they surveyed the mortally wounded Twin Towers on their TV sets that fateful September morning:
"These are Live Scenes From New York."
I decided not to publish the artwork in this post, mainly because you'd likely cheat and skim the picture, rendering my prose inert. You can find the original art on the Wikipedia entry.
The other day I wrote about the mash-up trailer for The Shining. The next time I went to visit my favorite capping site, which movie do you think was currently playing on the schedule? You guessed it. The Shining. The fact that this happened whilst I was drafting a post about coincidences is in itself ANOTHER coincidence!
Life is strange.
Anyway. Onto the post as it was originally intended--
A bit of a darker theme to today's post as it has something to do with the 2001 terror attacks on the World Trade Center. Don't worry, this isn't going to be another flogged-to-death opinion about the mayhem that occurred that day. Instead, I'm going to focus on an eerie coincidence.
When coincidences crop up they can really do a number on you and it can be very easy to read more into what has occurred than was there to begin with. I try not to let myself do that. Either there's a simple explanation I've failed to notice that only makes it seem like a coincidence has occurred, or what we're dealing with might be a genuine, bona-fide, 24 Karat, real McCoy coincidence. That's nothing to be afraid of. Statistically speaking, it would be very strange if there weren't any coincidences in our lives.
The following anecdote on coincidence I've been carrying around for a while now. The context makes it pretty hard to forget. Here's how it goes:
On the morning of September 11, 2001 you could walk into a music store in the U.S. and pick up the latest CD from prog-metal supergroup Dream Theater. Of all the factors that go into deciding the release date of a product, this one's just happened to align with that exact date.
There were probably a great many other products slated for release to consumers on 9/11. So, no great coincidence here, really. At least, not yet.
A year before, Dream Theater had played a live date in New York City. The set included a track by track performance of their previous studio album - a concept album titled Scenes From A Memory. They had recorded the event and set about preparing it for release as a live album. It seemed a fitting choice, then, that when the album was released it should feature cover artwork depicting the iconic New York City skyline, with the Twin Towers prominently featured--
Ablaze.
An unsavory coincidence; sure. And more than enough to warrant pulling the album from circulation for a makeover. But, the thing is -- we're still not done.
Because the album was a live presentation of Scenes From A Memory it made good sense to give it a title that implied as much. Unfortunately, the chosen title would mimick a phrase the world would hear again and again as they surveyed the mortally wounded Twin Towers on their TV sets that fateful September morning:
"These are Live Scenes From New York."
I decided not to publish the artwork in this post, mainly because you'd likely cheat and skim the picture, rendering my prose inert. You can find the original art on the Wikipedia entry.
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