Many believe World War II not only helped, but was one of the biggest factors in the US pulling itself out of the Great Depression– some do not– and I’m sure it’s been joked many times over that another war– in addition to the one we just finished fighting like, 5 minutes ago (did you know military operations had websites?), and the one we’re still fighting in Afghanistan– would help us out of this Great Recession. Well, the thought of someone in government or similar sphere of power seriously considering that idea is a morbid thought, but perhaps this is an even more twisted one: although domestic growth created to support wartime efforts could help us get out of our current, particularly deep economic rut, the thought of waging war for economic benefit– essentially letting the blood of American soldiers be payment for a way out of our current economic state, one created by Wall Street’s high risk, shady deals with subprime mortgages and derivative markets– is too “distasteful”. So, instead, those in power look at alternatives and given the somewhat misguided, but constant ranting about how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its regulations are “job killers”, a conspiracy is born to systematically lower EPA regulations to allow corporations to redirect resources they would normally have spent ensuring they were abiding by various environmental laws and regulations, knowing that it may cause adverse health effects on millions of communities around the country. They decide that considering it takes much longer for you to die from cancer than a soldier to die from a bullet or a bomb, and it is much harder to prove that the chemical waste improperly dumped near your home’s water source is the direct reason why you get a particular type of cancer at a particular point in your life– especially if litigation gets tied up in the court system and you die before its conclusion, should you decide to sue your health insurance company and/or the owner of the factory or plant that caused the pollution in the first place– that slow, causally ambigous death of a few million is not only a more preferable and conveniently politically advantageous, but morally justifiable route for economic growth compared to more American soldiers dying in another war (or ideally, just working harder to come up with better economic policies). Besides, the increased health problems may boost the healthcare industry and once we’re out of the rut, the EPA can create even more jobs by raising– or in some cases, re-raising– regulations, therefore creating a need for corporations to go back out and hire workers and obtain other resources to abide by them.

And then the next time there’s an economic slump, all over again… until they find “the next thing”…

I’m not saying this is what could happen under a President and/or Congress that rails just a little too much against the EPA or that anybody is even seriously considering it, or if anybody seriously believes anybody is seriously considering it, but if I thought of it, someone else must have…

“The bottom line is that your country and you have to be on the same page where values are considered, principles are considered, what you believe in. And if that is not the case, then it’s… you may be born somewhere and brought up somewhere, but then you don’t feel that same type of loyalty. Because loyalty comes through ideas, not through the earth, not through mud and trees and hills. That’s the same everywhere in the world. Is there any country in the world that has it enshrined in the constitution that you have a right to be happy?”

And to underline the point even more, note that Larsen is originally from Pakistan. Food for thought– check out the trailer for “Citizen USA” below:

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This feature is now part of what TiVo calls “trick play”– the ability to pause live TV and play back up to the last 30 minutes of recently viewed TV. And of course, this feature was not actually this feature in 1988; the recall button was actually a “last channel” button, automatically changing the channel to the previous or last channel viewed. Never having had a remote, much less a TV that was capable of remembering what the previous channel was, I thought this amazing new TV– small, but with the channel displayed on the screen in neon green digital numbers and shiny silver buttons that silently changed the channel up and down (instead of a plastic knob and dial that clicked as you turned it)– was surely capable of “recalling” the last few minutes of precious TV.

But no, it would be at least a decade before somebody out there thought of this idea, along with a long list of other great ones, and came out with the first public trials of TiVo, debuting in the San Francisco Bay Area in 1998, around the same time I first came out to the Bay Area myself (and have yet to go back). Busy, busy, busy.

And, by the way, do you know how hard it is to fix marble? That you would have to basically replace everything damaged here? Even if I was immortal and unbelievably wealthy– thus, having both the time and money to do it– I would be supremely peeved at the damage done to the steps of the dais, never mind how stupid the dais and thrones are. (That part of the fight isn’t in the clip, but you can see part of it at 1:50 in this featurette. I know, I have too much time on my hands right now. At least I tell you how to cut to the chase with the video.)

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Having said that, I love Jimmy Fallon too and these spots he does are hilarious. Here’s the one on Snickers Ads:

Check out more at Robert is Bothered.

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And from his stand-up show, on hip hop. Fast forward to 1:28 to see him perform as LL Cool J, Snoop, DMX, and Jay-Z:

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Second, Christina Aguilera‘s performance was also hot, especially the remixed “Genie in a Bottle:”

And finally, more Rihanna, this time with T.I., performing “Live your Life” (follow T.I.’s performance “Whatever You Like,” starts at 2:16: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtESW0q2YMY. (Apparently, this performance’s embedding was disabled by request and MTV took down all copies of it on their site. Weird. Don’t know why.)

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Disclaimer: I actually know a really smart and talented engineer who, after so many years in the industry, but no official degree, did his undergraduate degree through them so he could move on to a Master’s and I can’t blame him. Good for him.

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I didn’t think a show about web videos would be interesting since I’m not a fan of “wrap-up” shows and I think it’s weird when you people use TV to talk about things from the Internet– it’s like they’re dumbing down computers and the Internet to make it more accessible via television because staring at a TV screen is easier than staring at a monitor.

In any case, I gave the show a shot because I love Daniel Tosh and the show is actually pretty entertaining. And yes, I actually find exactly what I thought I wouldn’t like– using TV to “wrap-up” popular web content– useful since I don’t usually have time to troll the Internet for funny videos. And the Tosh.0 blog is actually a nice complement to the show itself, without being redundant. Give it a shot.

Here’s Daniel Tosh’s hilarious follow up to the above video:

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If ever there comes a time when everyone you vote for wins and they do everything you think they should do, there will still be a gap between what is and what ought to be, at home and around the world. It’s just inevitable… And so people like you and me– private citizens– have more power to do public good than ever before and we should step into the gap. And unlike previous times, it’s great if you’re rich– Bill Gates and Warren Buffet deserve the world’s thanks and gratitude– it’s amazing what they’re doing, but you don’t have to be rich. In the tsunami, Americans gave 1.3, 1.2 billion dollars. Thirty percent of our households gave over half of them over the Internet. That’s stunning. So, that means if like everybody that’s watching The Daily Show decides tomorrow that they think the biggest thing in the world is to make America free of foreign oil and they want us to go into biofuels and there’s a fund that promotes that and everybody that sees this show gives ten or fifteen or twenty dollars– not big money– they all do it, you could change the world.

Watch it at Comedy Central– Part 1 and Part 2– and check out the the Clinton Global Initiative.