Make sure and watch "the spike" at the end.

Leaving aside the (in my opinion) sorta sappy music, and the (pretty low-key) corporate sponsorship, this made me quite happy.

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Check out the site wherethehellismatt.com for more details.

You decide.

For some context, see the Wikipedia article on the turbo-encabulator.

A photograph of his daughter, Leia Ryan Baum, was placed inside the uniform of Sgt. Ryan John Baum during visitation at a funeral home in June 2007. "That's all he wanted to do, is come home and put her on his chest," said Dana Baum, Sgt. Baum's mother.

That's right, this guy died and never got to hold his daughter or see his wife again. He died in Iraq fighting for a war that was never justified in the first place, but aggressively pushed by Bush and his administration, based on flawed intelligence that they knew was flawed:

Yeah, that's him joking about not being able to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Hilarious! Yuck it up, Lieberman.

Apparently, Bush feels a bit bad that his words led to him being perceived as a "guy really anxious for war." But WE all really know he's just a big joker who didn't mean anybody harm, right? He had no choice but to go to war...I mean, he didn't go to war, he sent all of those soldiers to war (4000 dead as of March 2008), and they killed a bunch of Iraqis in the process (104,000 on the low end as of January 2008, according to Iraqi Health Ministry). But, at least things are going well in Iraq now.

I just wanted to remind you of this, and remind myself: WE put these people into power. Every time we don't speak out about something, willfully remain uneducated, and let someone tell us "the way to do things," we risk losing our rights and our lives.

Contact your representatives and tell them what you think. Follow their activity and find out what committees they're on. Vote. It's your government.

Thanks to BagnewsNotes for clueing me into that amazing picture.

...at least, it's funny in the year 2008:

http://www.2007rapture.com/

From the Top 100 list at http://www.fstdt.com/.

Thanks, Graham Linehan's funny blog.

I'm taking this opportunity to link to scientology. Oh, and also dianetics. You could do the same if you'd like.

In celebration of the ruling on gay marriage in California, here is a list (which I found here and traced back to here from here which evidentally got it from a forum...sorry I can't attribute the original author) expressing why this is actually a big problem.

1. Being gay is not natural. Real Americans™ always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning.
2. Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
3. Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.
4. Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn’t changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can’t marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
5. Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britany Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
6. Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn’t be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren’t full yet, and the world needs more children.
7. Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
8. Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That’s why we have only one religion in America.
9. Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That’s why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
10. Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven’t adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.

Seriously—big congratulations to you gay and lesbian folks out there in California, and here's hoping this starts a big wave of change across the nation. Cheers!