June 24, 2008
Incredible Valedictorian Speech
Student goes on stage in front of his whole class and proceeds to offend everyone in this hilarious speech. I'm pretty sure everyone voted for him. I'm not so sure the school administration let him speak at graduation. The fellow in the video's name is Brandon Rosario, and you can read more about his speech and the controversy it created HERE!
That's What She Said
Finally, all of The Office's that's-what-she-said moments together in one video. It's a wild, non-stop thrill ride, the best 5 minutes of your life. It'll leave you begging for more because you'll want to experience it over and over again. When it's finally over you'll want cuddle with it until you fall asleep. In the morning, you'll wake up early and make it pancakes.
June 23, 2008
More of the Awesome Works of Bernard Derriman
The Dinosaur Song
The Toucan Song
The Green Anaconda Song
The Umbrella Bird Song
We’ve Got Water On Mars, Let’s Find Life!
The Mars Lander’s mission on the fourth planet from the Sun is a dream come true for many scientists who have been trying for decades to prove that there is indeed water on Mars, and that where there’s water, there could be life. NASA’s Phoenix lander recently discovered chunks of bright materials near the surface of the planet, which at a first glance appeared to be ice. Mission investigators were convinced: could it be anything else?
At the time, the answer would have been yes, as some feared those could have been in fact salt deposits. However, their complete disappearance in just days after they had been uncovered made it clear: it was water ice, as scientists confirmed last week.
Phoenix Principal Investigator Peter Smith of the University of Arizona, Tucson explained that their disappearance was a confirmation that the images sent by the Mars Lander depicted ice: “salt can’t do that.”
The phenomenon couldn’t be clearer, and sublimation (the transition from a solid phase to a gas phase with no intermediate liquid phase) is the key word here: scientists explained that the chunks of ice evaporated after coming in direct contact with the Martian atmosphere.
As Phoenix’s robotic arm continues its digging, preparing us for a possible encounter with another icy layer, the science team in charge of the mission has a lot to do. Finding water (in solid phase) on Mars is just one of the elements that could answer the big question: has life on Mars ever been possible?
With the help of the instruments onboard, scientists will try to establish through detailed analysis whether the environment below the surface of the planet is or has even been favorable to microbial life.
So far, Phoenix’s Mars mission gave hope to scientists and enthusiasts likewise in their mission to discover life somewhere in the Solar System.
The key evidence brought to light in the first month of the lander’s mission is a sign that Phoenix is on the right track, and that what some reject as pure wishful thinking could be in fact as close to reality as it gets: we’ve got water, let’s find life! [via efluxmeduia.com]
Comedian George Carlin dies at 71
George Carlin, an irreverent US comedian who was arrested for offensive language after performances of his cult routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television", has died in California of heart failure. He was 71. Carlin was admitted to a Santa Monica hospital yesterday complaining of chest pain and died last evening, said his publicist, Jeff Abraham. He had a history of heart trouble and drug dependency.
He had performed as recently as last weekend at the Orleans Casino and Hotel in Las Vegas. The previous week it was announced that he was to be awarded the 11th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humour.
Carlin constantly pushed the envelope with his jokes, particularly with his most celebrated and controversial routine. When he uttered all seven words during a show in Milwaukee in 1972, he was arrested for disturbing the peace. When they were played on a New York radio station, they resulted in a Supreme Court ruling in 1978 upholding the government’s power to punish stations for broadcasting offensive language.
“So my name is a footnote in American legal history, which I’m perversely kind of proud of,” he said earlier this year.
Carlin hosted the first ever broadcast of the late night comedy show Saturday Night Live while high on drugs, noting on his website that he was “loaded on cocaine all week long”.
He was a cynic with a gloomy view of mankind. “The world is a big theatre-in-the-round as far as I’m concerned, and I’d love to watch it spin itself into oblivion,” he said. “Tune in and watch the human adventure.”
Carlin was born on May 12, 1937, and he and his brother were given a working-class Irish upbringing in the Morningside Heights section of Manhattan by their single mother. He kept the nuns at his school entertained with his jokes.
He dropped out of high school in the ninth grade, and joined the Air Force aged 17 in 1954. He claimed on his website that he received three court-martials and numerous disciplinary punishments.
After receiving a general discharge in 1957, he took an announcing job at a radio station in Boston. It didn't last. “Fired after three months for driving mobile news van to New York to buy pot,” his website claims.
Carlin took various temporary jobs, including as a carnival organist, a radio disc jockey and marketing peanut brittle, while he tried to get his comedy breakthrough, developing such characters as Al Sleet, a “hippie-dippie weatherman”.
His first chance came in 1960, after he and a friend, Jack Burns, moved to Hollywood to perform in nightclubs as a comedy double act, and were invited to appear on the Tonight Show with Jack Paar. But it was to be 1967 before he made his first solo television performance.
Not long after this, his act underwent a dramatic change. Carlin had once hoped to emulate the gentle humour of his childhood hero, Danny Kaye. When he found that this kindly vein of comedy didn't work for him, he developed a new style of edgy, provocative material, influenced by Lenny Bruce and Bob Newhart. At first his new, foul-mouthed act cost him bookings and popularity, but within a couple of years it paid off, as he was taken up by younger, more disaffected audiences.
His comedy revolved around a central theme: humanity is a cursed, doomed species. “I don’t have any beliefs or allegiances. I don’t believe in this country, I don’t believe in religion, or a god, and I don’t believe in all these man-made institutional ideas,” he said.
Balding and bearded, in the 1970s Carlin achieved the status of an anti-establishment icon with stand-up routines full of drug references. In the 1978 legal case that surrounded his "Seven Words..." routine, Federal Communications Commission vs Pacifica Foundation, the highest court in America ruled that the words cited in Carlin’s routine were indecent, and that the government’s broadcast regulator could ban them from being aired at times when children might be listening.
Drug addiction plagued him for much of his life, beginning with marijuana as a teenager, graduating to cocaine in the 1970s, and then to prescription painkillers and wine. During the cocaine years, Carlin ignored his finances and ended up owing about $3 million in back taxes. In 2004, he entered a Los Angeles rehab clinic for his alcohol and Vicodin abuse.
He produced 23 comedy albums, 14 HBO specials, three books, a couple of TV shows and appeared in several films, including Bill and Ted's Awesome Adventure. He recently voiced a hippie Volkswagen bus named Fillmore in the Pixar cartoon Cars.
Carlin is survived by his second wife Sally Wade, and his daughter Kelly Carlin McCall. His first wife, Brenda, died of cancer in 1997. [Via TimesOnline]
Welsh police helicopter spots 'unusual aircraft'
UFO enthusiasts got a boost Friday when Welsh police confirmed that one of their helicopter crews had spotted an "unusual aircraft" flying over Cardiff earlier this month in London.An investigation into the sighting had been launched, they said. The police clarification came after tabloid newspaper The Sun reported a UFO had "attacked" a police helicopter, following it for several miles over the Bristol Channel.
"The pilot banked sharply to avoid being hit, then launched into a high-speed pursuit. But he was forced to give up the chase as the helicopter's fuel ran low -- and the UFO escaped," the tabloid reported.
The helicopter crew had described the object as "flying saucer-shaped and circled by flashing lights," it added.
That description was rather more dramatic than the official police version, which said: "South Wales Police can confirm its air support unit sighted an unusual aircraft.
"This was reported to the relevant authorities for their investigation," they added in a brief statement, avoiding the use of the term "UFO", or Unidentified Flying Object.
At the time of the incident, the helicopter with three men on board was waiting to land at the St Athan RAF base near Cardiff. The sighting reportedly took place at 00:40 am (23:40 GMT) on June 8.
South Wales Police denied there was a pursuit and indicated that the helicopter crew was never in any danger.
A Ministry of Defence spokesman said it had heard nothing about the incident.
"But it is certainly not advisable for police helicopters to go chasing what they think are UFOs," he added. [Via Yahoo News]