Videos, Audio, Poetry, Paintings etc., that send a message

[2020hindsight]

Salesmanship

Worlds Most Dangerous Comic - This guy appeared on "America's Got Talent" and he goes all out just to win!

I still think it's more salesmanship than anything else -
he gets the audience chanting "we want more !!" lol

PS this one is another type of salesmanship lol - cute or what
Connie FINAL of Britains got talent

 

[2020hindsight]

Spare a thought for Chinese pollution ( no need to see these through of course)
and US (probably others) prepared to ignore international conventions about dumping in the third (second?) world
E-Waste: Dumping on the Poor 电子垃圾污染穷国
Chinese Pollution Death Tolls
BBC News - China's Grime Belt Air Pollution Extreme

Nasty pollution in China
Here's a comment posted on that last youtube... incidentally he claims to be "a Republican and a Christian"

We should not let radical environmentalists create all kinds of regulations in China because "pollution" is overstated and exploited in these videos and blown out of proportion. Waste = success. No waste = no money being made.

As a Republicand and a Christian I say we vote to overturn pollution laws in America so we can have a competitive edge again. "global warming" is a myth. GOD is REAL!

well he might be a Republican
and he might even be a Christian
But I can't see that he is justified in calling himself a member of a humane race. (or human race for that matter)

 

[imajica]

tell me if this doesn't send a shiver down your spine - damn this guy has a good voice!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exyJ2CSfrHo

 

[2020hindsight]

tell me if this doesn't send a shiver down your spine - damn this guy has a good voice!!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exyJ2CSfrHo

ima - not wrong mate -
Paul Potts, and his songs out on CD or DVD whatever I think I saw.

Here he is winning ( and little Connie beside him ) - one strange lineup of finalists for the award announcement - the 3 min mark is enough btw.
Britains Got Talent FINAL RESULTS SHOW Paul Potts The Winner

 

[2020hindsight]

Rare, extreme tornado video from close range - bright white
Tornado Passes Over Camera Probe
HUGE MANITOBA TORNADO! June 23, 2007

 

[BIG BWACULL]

For a laugh :

 

[2020hindsight]

Billy Budd was written in 1886 but set 1797 - roughly around the time when the Aussie convicts, the French Revolution and Mutiny on the Bounty...

This opera is on in Houston next year (just before the fed elections in USA such a contrast, the moral questions of the past, and those of the present

Britten's Billy Budd

Accusations of mutiny and an accidental death leave sailor Billy Budd in danger of hanging for murder. Britten's masterful setting of Herman Melville's towering novel-adapted by E.M. Forester and Eric Crozier-illuminates a journey through "the straits of hell."

Britten's Billy Budd
Apr. 25 - May 9, 2008 at Houston Grand Opera
www.houstongrandopera.org

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billy_Budd Billy Budd is a novella begun around 1886 by American author Herman Melville, (August 1, 1819 – September 28, 1891) completed but not published before his death. The work has been central to Melville scholarship since it was discovered in manuscript among Melville's papers in 1924 (33 years after his death)and published the same year.

... In 1962, Harrison Hayford and Merton M. Sealts, Jr. established what is now considered the correct text; it was published by the University of Chicago Press, and most editions printed since then follow the Hayford/Sealts text. One of the most influential twentieth century versions of the story was the libretto by E. M. Forster and Eric Crozier for the 1951 opera Billy Budd by Benjamin Britten.

[edit] Plot summary
The plot follows Billy Budd, a seaman pressed into service aboard the HMS Bellipotent in the year 1797, when the British Navy was reeling from two major mutinies and was threatened by Napoleon's military ambitions. Billy, suffused with innocence, openness, and natural charisma, is adored by the crew, but for unexplained reasons arouses the antagonism of the ship's Master-at-Arms, John Claggart, who falsely accuses Billy of conspiracy to mutiny.

When Claggart brings his charges to the Captain, the Hon. Edward Fairfax "Starry" Vere, Vere summons both Claggart and Billy to his cabin for a private confrontation. When, in Billy's and Vere's presence, Claggart makes his false charges, Billy is unable to find the words to respond, due to a speech impediment. Unable to express himself verbally, he lashes out seemingly involuntarily at Claggart, killing him with a single blow. Vere, an eminently thoughtful man whose name recalls the Latin words "veritas" (truth) and "vir" (man) as well as the English word "veer," then convenes a drumhead court-martial.

He then intervenes in the deliberations of the court-martial panel to argue them into convicting Billy, despite their and his belief in Billy's innocence before God. ("an angel of God, yet the angel must die.") Vere claims to be following the letter of the Mutiny Act and the Articles of War, but recent scholarship suggests otherwise. At his insistence, the court-martial convicts Billy; Vere argues that any appearance of weakness in the officers and failure to enforce discipline could stir the already-turbulent waters of mutiny throughout the British fleet. Condemned to be hanged from the ship's yardarm at dawn the morning after the killing, Billy's final words are, "God bless Captain Vere!"

The story may have been based on events onboard USS Somers.


[edit] Popular interpretation
A story ultimately about good and evil, Billy Budd has often been interpreted allegorically, with Billy interpreted typologically as Christ or the Biblical Adam, with Claggart (compared to a snake several times in the text) figured as Satan. Part of Claggart's hatred comes not despite Billy's goodness, but because of it. Claggart is also seen to be thought of as the Biblical Judas. The act of turning in an innocent man to authority and the allusion of the priest kissing Billy on the cheek before he dies, just as Judas kisses Jesus on the cheek when he was betrayed. Vere is often associated with Pontius Pilate. This theory stems mainly from the characteristics attributed to each man. Billy is innocent, often compared to a barbarian or a child, while Claggart is a representation of evil with a "depravity according to nature," a phrase Melville borrows from Plato. Vere, without a doubt the most conflicted character in the novel, is torn between his compassion for the "Handsome Sailor" and his martial adherence to the Articles of War.

......
In the 1980s, Richard Weisberg of Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law advanced a reading of the novel based on his careful research into the history of the governing law. Based on his mining of statutory law and actual practice in the Royal Navy in the era in which the book takes place, Weisberg rejects the traditional reading of Captain Vere as a good man trapped by bad law and proposes instead that Vere deliberately distorted the applicable substantive and procedural law to bring about Billy's death. The most fully worked-out version of Weisberg's argument can be found in chapters 8 and 9 of his book The Failure of the Word: The Lawyer as Protagonist in Modern Fiction [orig. ed., 1984; expanded ed., 1989].

"The Lawyer as Protagonist" lol. - or "The Judge as Protagonist"?
Tale of Two Cities. (?)
Anyway - nothing like a good bit of Melodrama - (beats "Neighbours" maybe? lol)

 

[2020hindsight]

For a laugh :

lol BB - you're right, we're gonna need some light entertainment before the next bludy month is out.

 

[noirua]

An appropriate song for an election period. Sung powerfully by Lea Salonga, "Don't Cry For Me Argentina"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7Ns1U0OnE8

 

[2020hindsight]

message? - never sit near the front when the hula girls are picking partners
Hula Dancing Grandpa -the original

she was like a ten storey building, mum - (with all the action at the fifth floor )
Tahitian Dancing

 

[2020hindsight]

moral? - never sit near the front when the country dancers are picking etc etc - ahh what the heck - you only live once ! - yeeaahhh hoo!
COUNTRY DANCE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL FLAYOSC SEPTEMBRE 2007
Leaving of Liverpool

 

[2020hindsight]

and don't sit down the front in Macedonia ... etc
Serra Akrites Serres

greek pontian ancient dance danced from serres akrites dancers

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bfJDJglBaOg[/media] Ethnic Macedonians from Greece dancing

This is a video showing ethnic Macedonians from a village arrounf Florina (Lerin) in northern greece. The folk dance is called "ZA RAMO" which in Macedonian means "Sholder to sholder", because people that are dancing are holding each other by their sholder.

 

[2020hindsight]

Apparently Macedonia is in the north of Greece, and Sparta in the south - but they nonetheless had some similarities...

Spartans more likely to do a war dance though
and thrived on military rather than democracy (a la its rival Athens)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDiUG52ZyHQ

 

[2020hindsight]

surfing a little wave

http://oceania.org.au
http://iwhales.org

This is a whale we encountered during our 2001 Research Expedition.
We named him "Sky Rider". He breached over sixty times consecutively!

The Oceania Project was established in 1988 by Trish Franklin.
We are an independent not-for-profit research organization dedicated to raising awareness about whales and dolphins.
Thank you for your support!
Participate in the internship program aboard the annual whale research expedition:

Teach me how to sing with whales - echo friendly bark,
Teach me twenty thousand tales of inmates of the ark,
Let me learn to know them better, whether whale or Irish Setter,
Make 'Extinct' a silent letter - THEN I'll disembark!"

 

[2020hindsight]

Secular Quotes

Themes:
skepticism is good
religion is illogical
religion is dangerous
The Quotes:

"Question with boldness even the existence of God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear."
--Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
--Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"We must question the story logic of having an all-knowing all-powerful God, who creates faulty Humans, and then blames them for his own mistakes."
--Gene Roddenberry (1921-1991)

"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."
--Carl Sagan (1934-1997)

"I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them." ibid., p. 226
--Galileo Galilei (1564--1642)

"The intelligent beings in these regions should therefore not be surprised if they observe that their locality in the universe satisfies the conditions that are necessary for their existence. It is a bit like a rich person living in a wealthy neighborhood not seeing any poverty."
--Stephen Hawking (1942-present)

"Man is, and always has been, a maker of gods. It has been the most serious and significant occupation of his sojourn in the world."
--John Burroughs (1837-1921)

"If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life."
--Albert Camus (1913-1960)

"Faith, as well intentioned as it may be, must be built on facts, not fiction--faith in fiction is a damnable false hope."
--Thomas Edison (1847-1931)

"And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence."
--Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."
--Richard Dawkins (1941-persent)

"Man... he thinks he is the Creator's pet ... he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea." Letters from the Earth
--Samuel Clemens / Mark Twain (1835-1910)

"I cannot persuade myself that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created the Ichneumonidae with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars or that a cat should play with mice"
--Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

"An honest god is the noblest work of man. ... God has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved and he was invariably found on the side of those in power."
--Robert G. Ingersoll (1833-1899)

"It's an incredible con job when you think about it, to believe something now in exchange for something after death. Even corporations with their reward systems don't try to make it posthumous."
--Gloria Steinem (1934-present)

"I find the whole business of religion profoundly interesting. But it does mystify me that otherwise intelligent people take it seriously."
--Douglas Adams (1952-2001)

"I can't embrace a male god who has persecuted female sexuality throughout the ages. And that persecution still goes on today all over the world."
--Amanda Donohoe (1962-present)

"The beauty of religious mania is that it has the power to explain everything. Once God (or Satan) is accepted as the first cause of everything which happens in the mortal world, nothing is left to chance...logic can be happily tossed out the window."
--Stephen King (1947-persent)

"Religions are like fireflies. They require darkness in order to shine."
--Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860)

"It is usually when men are at their most religious that they behave with the least sense and the greatest cruelty."
--Ilka Chase (1900-1978)

"There was a time when religion ruled the world. It is known as The Dark Ages."
--Ruth Hurmence Green (1915-1981)

"Religion is a byproduct of fear... For much of human history, it may have been a necessary evil, but why was it more evil than necessary? Isn't killing people in the name of God a pretty good definition of insanity?"
--Arthur C. Clarke (1917-present)

"The wisdom from these great thinkers is a precious gift. To ignore their intellectual contribution, is to risk stalling the progress they hoped to foster."

SecularAstronomer (1987-) and websnarf (1969-), YouTube Atheists.

If horses could draw they would draw their gods as horses ....... Xenophanes 500BC (v approx)

 

[noirua]

Excellent stuff, your last post 2020, everyone should read it - Good Luck

 

[2020hindsight]

noi
obviously posted by skeptics ... but thought-provoking at least.
some people put a lot of effort into those youtube posts yes?

PS the more I read of Mark Twain, the more I like him

"Man... he thinks he is the Creator's pet ... he even believes the Creator loves him; has a passion for him; sits up nights to admire him; yes and watch over him and keep him out of trouble. He prays to him and thinks He listens. Isn't it a quaint idea." Letters from the Earth
--Samuel Clemens / Mark Twain (1835-1910)

 

[2020hindsight]

...............

I saw this on the side of the road .... it had fallen off a ute ..... whether or not there was a tenant in that cage beforehand, at least there wasn't afterwards

(PS Did I hear that there's a high risk that a spinoff from the equine flue virus or vaccinations might be that a lot of native birds are killed off with a similar virus ? )

 

[Dukey]

Poor Johnny
... Remember the mad you-tuber defending Brittany Spears.... it just gets better...

Check it out here ...

 

[2020hindsight]

cripes that's hilarious Dukey lol

ripper
There are more there as well I notice
http://au.youtube.com/results?search_query=Leave+John+Howard+Alone!&search=Search
Leave John Howard Alone!

"He's said sorry! - to all aboriginals with high mortgages in marginal electorates for cryssake!!"

- this bloke could get a job with the Chasers lol

obviously based on this one lol (as you say) - whatever drugs she's on, they sure aren't performance enhancing lol

like - she got that white streak through her hair from the inside lol

CRAZY BRITNEY SPEARS FAN v.2!

Manic Howard Fan