John Hodgman at Radio & TV Correspondents' Dinner
By Heather Saturday Jun 20, 2009 6:00pmFrom C-SPAN, John Hodgman's very funny, nerd-o-licious roast of the President at the Radio and TV Correspondents' Dinner.
©2009 Crooks And Liars
From C-SPAN, John Hodgman's very funny, nerd-o-licious roast of the President at the Radio and TV Correspondents' Dinner.
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Man, Hodgman is funny! I love the dry delivery...and , of course, the intelligent writing!
At least he didn't try to do a Vulcan mind meld.:)
Prosthetic ears? LMAO!
(I have big ears too.:)
Hodgman is one of my faves. Obama is always such a good sport.
Thanks, Heather!
Third answer on dune questions: spice IIRC.
The rest idk.
:p
Close but good.
Answers:
1 - Shai-Hulud
2 - Thumper
3 - The Water of Life (Spice Essence it ferments into spice after time)
I didn't remember #3 until later.
That's what's cool about it. It's not like some obscure Dennis Miller reference that makes no sense. Lots of us (well nerds at least)remember this and as I stated before it has some relevance to our current times.
I'll get off my high horse after this but IMHO Dune is a great commentary on the modern world. You have a group of people who have corner on the market for the substance that is pretty much the sole fuel for transportation. The majority of those providing that substance are serfs while the profit is made by others and the rest of us are just consumers.
It does go much deeper but this is not the place to go all Frank Herbert so I will leave it there.
Ah! Haha- you already posted it. Damn you.
Waitasec. If all you need to summon a sandworm was an animated rabbit, wouldn't Bugs Bunny or Roger Rabbit do just as well?
Is that the guy from the Mac commercial?
.
.
I liked his question of whether the Obamas would be worshiping Crom.
A google search of Conan Crom turns up 172,000 hits.
John Hodgman is awesome and true nerd.
Star Trek to Star Wars is the obvious progression for the non-nerds but John took it home to Dune.
Unfortunately President Obama has probably never read Dune series but it was awesome none the less.
Given these times it might make sense for our leaders to read at least "Dune" itself. Then again most politicians are probably well aware of the politics of oil and travel and they choose to side with power instead of people.
_
Substitute the noun progressive for nerd in Hodgman's final comments.
Then watch the whole routine again. :)
It was an interesting commentary on Obama, a rare combo of nerd and jock. I think the president was slightly embarrassed by the superman photo, he is a great sport.
1. Shai-Hulud
2. Thumper
3. Water of Life
Sorry about that but a big NERD HIGH FIVE!
I really want to see Obama make an FDR "Nothing to fear but fear itself" speech starting out with the phrase... "We must not fear. Fear is the mind killer..
That would really seal his nerd cred.
On a serious note, fear really is the mind killer since it makes people do awful things like... giving up the personal freedoms. The Bush administration worked that idea to the bone and sadly it seems that the Obama administration seems to be falling into that mind set. We need the open government that Obama campaigned on. I'm not saying that I want to throw Obama out, I am just expressing my displeasure at campaign promises not kept.
It could be worse though, we could be living under a McCain/Palin regime.
I just read this on another website and thought it was interesting. It sure brought the wingers out of the woodwork!
CONSERVATIVE VALUES CLAIMED TO BE A MENTAL ILLNESS
A study funded by the US government has concluded that conservatism can be explained psychologically as a set of neuroses rooted in "fear and aggression, dogmatism and the intolerance of ambiguity".
As if that was not enough to get Republican blood boiling, the report's four authors linked Hitler, Mussolini, Ronald Reagan and the rightwing talkshow host, Rush Limbaugh, arguing they all suffered from the same affliction.
All of them "preached a return to an idealised past and condoned inequality".
Republicans are demanding to know why the psychologists behind the report, Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition, received $1.2m in public funds for their research from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.
The authors also peer into the psyche of President George Bush, who turns out to be a textbook case. The telltale signs are his preference for moral certainty and frequently expressed dislike of nuance.
"This intolerance of ambiguity can lead people to cling to the familiar, to arrive at premature conclusions, and to impose simplistic cliches and stereotypes," the authors argue in the Psychological Bulletin.
One of the psychologists behind the study, Jack Glaser, said the aversion to shades of grey and the need for "closure" could explain the fact that the Bush administration ignored intelligence that contradicted its beliefs about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
That study was published in 2003, and has been discussed for a while.
The slant you saw seems to imply that the government paid the researchers 1.2 million for this study, which has morphed from the original right-wing talking point which was that the 4 researchers have been involved in 1.2 million dollars in federal research grants over their lifetimes and that this study shows that such grants are obviously a waste of money.
I have been unable to google up any primary source for the 1.2 million dollar claim.
Obama is a closet jock!
Yeah and Pat Robertson is a closet humanitarian.
*<};o>
I just had a nerdgasm...
BTW, i believe you can go on iTunes and DL a podcast of TWiT (this week in technology) where he appeared last Xmas in an episode called 'A Ten Ferret Night' with jonathan coulton.
6 months later, and i still listen to it from time to time
The part where he whipped out his inhaler and took a drag, priceless. maybe you have to have been a life-long asthmatic like myself, but that was my highlight of the clip.
rolled in the sleeve of yer t-shirt...badboy nerd.
are synonymous with 'bullies'; the kinda people who hi-five each other in lieu of reasoned discourse, and use words like 'threepeat'.
And who'll spike a volleyball in yer face because they can.
Eight years of shitty, swirlie policy.
As a sort of trekkie myself, I thought it was really cool how Obama could make the vulcan hand sign. Finally, someone close to my generation who understands some things about pop culture.
This is a response to Bukyeyegirl's comment about the study done on Right Winger behavior.
There were several studies that mirrored the one you're talking about. Authoritarian behavior was a ubject of interest after WWII. Our government wanted to know how a person like Hitler could come into so much power, so some governments (not just america) had several studies done over the next few decades.
The BEST one was the study done by Bob Altemeyer. The title of the report is 'The Authoritarians'. It took 40 years, and was posted on the web to download for free.
He was going to publish it as a book, but then realized that it was too important, since signs were showing that this country becoming strongly fascist so he put in on-line for anyone to copy.
You can order a bound edition of it as well.
It goes into detail on just how mentally maladjusted Authoritarians are.
Just so you know, right wingers are Authoritarians. So are religious fundamentalists, most of whom are also in the far right.
It also goes into how they are more hostile, tend to be more violent, be more delusional, how they react with anger when their actions are questions, how they tend to demonize others... and much more.
They also tend to slavishly follow leaders, be they a church or a political party. They tend to have rather strong amoral tendencies, and need strong rules to keep them in line. They tend to be more fearful, and be more willing to act violently towards others.
They do not understand nuance. (Look up how most right wingers can't tell Colbert is using satire.)
Basically, they are mentally disturbed. Often dangerously so.
Look up the study and download it. It doesn't cost anything. Or just order a bound copy (which you will have to pay for).
It will answer a LOT of questions about Authoritarians.
Then you will see one of the reasons why were are having so many right wingers shooting people, rallying at white supremacist groups, talking about acting violently towards others, and so on.
It's plain as the nose on your face, once you know what signs to look for.
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