Beyond Black Mesa is a short indie fan film based in the Half Life universe. It’s quite action packed and centers around a few resistance fighters struggling to get out a warning about the impending invasion. The short film had 2 years in the making and was done for $1200, the results are absolutely incredible. I was wishing for more. Even Valve “favorited” the film on YouTube – check it out, it’s… Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : TweakTown News RSS Feed Discovery Date : 22/01/2011 04:46 Number of articles : 3
Continue reading …The first order of business for the 112th Congress was its vote to repeal the health care law—is that good policy? Also, President Obama courts the business community and welcomes his Chinese counterpart—and the “Left, Right & Center” … Related Entries January 21, 2011 Orszag Sees Turbulent Times Ahead January 21, 2011 Live Chat Podcast: Robert Scheer on Obama’s Call for Less Regulation
Continue reading …(YouTube link) Stjepan Hauser and Luka Sulic perform Michael Jackson’s “Smooth Criminal” on cellos. Cellos are cool! -via Buzzfeed Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Neatorama Discovery Date : 22/01/2011 03:48 Number of articles : 2
Continue reading …MSNBC host Keith Olbermann announced today that he is leaving the network and has taped his last Countdown show. MSNBC issued a statement that it had ended its contract with the controversial host, with no further explanation. Olbermann, who hosted the network’s top-rated show, gave no explanation as to why…
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Call Bill O’Reilly — he seems to want to be Top Civility Cop these days. There’s a case — wait wait wait, I mean an “isolated incident” — for him up in Massachusetts he needs to get right on top of: Arlington Man Loses Gun License Due To Blog About Tucson Shooting A blog threatening members of Congress in the wake of the Tucson, Arizona shooting has prompted Arlington police to temporarily suspend the firearms license of an Arlington man. It was the headline “1 down and 534 to go” that caught the attention. “One” refers to Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in the rampage, while 534 refers to the other members of the U.S. House and Senate. Police are investigating the “suitability” of 39-year-old Travis Corcoran to have a firearms license Whaddya think, audience? Is this guy a Pinhead or a Patriot? Well, given a chance to apologize or elaborate or just somehow indicate a tiny molecule of decency, our teabagging “libertarian” hero answered thus: “I dislike Representatives and Senators, and I think that each and every one of them is doing grave harm to the United States, and to the freedoms of the citizens of the US.” I’m sure Bill will be all over this. Or will Fox just pretend this story out of existence, as it always does when right-wingers inflict threats and violence against liberals and the government? Hmmmmmm. Tough one. Now watch while the Tea Partiers and gun rights nutcases turn Corcoran into a free-speech martyr. Because urging your audience to kill members of Congress and other threats and incitements to violence constitutes protected speech to these loons.
Continue reading …I understand this intellectually. I understand it strategically. But emotionally, it’s not playing well in the least. President Obama plans to appoint GE chief Jeffrey Immelt to head a new White House panel on job growth . President Barack Obama will announce Friday that Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive of General Electric Co., will head a new White House board aimed at finding ways to foster private-sector job growth. The board will replace an existing panel called the President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, led by former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker. The name of the new panel stresses competitiveness and job creation , which are expected to be themes of Mr. Obama’s State of the Union Address next week. It will be called the President’s Council on Jobs and Competitiveness. Mr. Immelt also served on the previous panel. Mr. Volcker will not join the new council. Putting a prominent chief executive atop a panel is the latest gesture by the White House toward strengthening ties to business. So I put my logic and thinking cap on for a minute, and I think to myself, “well, it neutralizes Immelt’s past role as Obama administration slanderer, right? It would be pretty difficult to be the head of this panel and head off to pal around with his buddies and badmouth President Obama like he did last time, right?” And of course, jobs are the big issue for this year. Jobs, jobs, jobs. We need them yesterday. So I suppose having a corporate CEO with all those other corporate contacts is a good way to start pushing growth. All fine and well, as long as I keep my heart out of it. What bothers me, though, when I step out of the analytical and into my gut is this: Immelt might be able to create jobs, but it will be on Big Biz terms with little to no worker protection. The jobs will be filled because people are desperate for them, and we will all serve the bottom line, because that is what employees of public corporations serve — one bottom line to rule them all. These are not places with heart or a care for their employees, because they cannot be. They must be always mindful of and servant to the profit margin for the quarter. Fine. That doesn’t mean they still shouldn’t have a seat at the table. But where I get completely lost is here: Who is sitting at the table and speaking for us?
Continue reading …Tony Blair finally expressed regret yesterday for the hundreds of thousands of lives lost during the Iraq invasion, only for his long-awaited words to be met with anger by the families of some of those who lost their lives. In emotional scenes at the Chilcot inquiry, the former Prime Minister was heckled as he said he regretted “deeply and profoundly the loss of life”. Calls of “Too late” broke out as Mr Blair spoke, with one woman turning her back on him. Two others left. Rose Gentle, whose son, Gordon, was killed in Basra in 2004, shouted as Mr Blair left the hearing: “Your lies killed my son. I hope you can live with it.” During his four and a half hours of evidence, Mr Blair shed new…
Continue reading …Click here to view this media Anderson Cooper brought on fearmonger Frank Gaffney — who, as Right Wing Watch reported , has been attacking the other guest during the segment, Suhail Kahn, as someone who has ties to “radical Islamists”. I’m not sure why he thinks Gaffney needs any more face time in the media, since he surely gets enough over at Fox. But to his credit, Cooper did call Gaffney out for how weak his claims are and allowed him to be confronted by Kahn. Cooper mentioned Homeland Security Chairman Rep. Peter King’s appearance on Gaffney’s radio show. Our friends at Think Progress have more on that, and the witch hunt we get to look forward to now that King has taken the gavel there. Rep. Peter King Says Muslims Aren’t ‘American’ When It Comes To War : Rep. Peter King (R-NY), the new chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, has promised to launch a series of investigations of Muslim Americans beginning in February. “I’ve made it clear that I’ll focus the committee on counterterrorism and hold hearings on a wide range of issues, including radicalization of the American Muslim community and homegrown terrorism,” he told Newsday. King has repeatedly said that he only wants to single out “ Islamic terrorism ” in his hearings on domestic security, and has even claimed that there are “ too many mosques in this country.” Joining anti-Muslim conspiracy theorist Frank Gaffney on Gaffney’s radio program last week, King doubled down on his promise to launch a witch-hunt against Muslims. He repeated a falsehood that he stated earlier — that American Muslims never cooperate to combat terrorism. But in addition to this claim, King made the extraordinary smear that American Muslims aren’t “American” when it comes to war. “[W]hen a war begins,” King said, every ethnic and religious group unites as “Americans.” “But in this case,” King continued, referring to Muslims, “this is not the situation. … Whether it’s cultural tradition, whatever, the fact is the Muslim community does not cooperate anywhere near to the extent that it should”. More there from Think Progress, so go read the rest. Here’s a portion of Right Wing Watch’s reporting on Gaffney, much of which Cooper mentioned in his opening. Right Wing Boycott Movement Links CPAC to the Muslim Brotherhood : Incensed over the participation of the conservative gay-rights group GOProud in the Conservative Political Action Conference , or CPAC, far-right activists are now trying to connect the major conservative event to the Muslim Brotherhood. The American Conservative Union (ACU), which hosts CPAC, has been the target of Religious Right groups and leaders over their handling of GOProud’s involvement, with Joseph Farah even calling for conservatives to “ purge ” the ACU from the movement. Already, the Family Research Council, Concerned Women For America, American Values, the American Principles Project, the Capital Research Center, the Center for Military Readiness, Liberty Counsel, Liberty University, and the National Organization for Marriage have announced their boycott of CPAC . Now, the conservative news site WorldNetDaily , a major cheerleader for the groups boycotting CPAC, is giving right wing activist Frank Gaffney a platform to charge the ACU with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, a radical Islamist group. Gaffney is no stranger to conspiracy theories, as he previously claimed that the repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell “amounts to a vote for reinstating the draft ,” maintained that Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan is tied to an “ominous campaign” to “ bring Shariah to America ,” and said that Barack Obama is “ America’s first Muslim president .” He is joined by WorldNetDaily’s Paul Sperry, who wrote a book asserting that radical Muslims were infiltrating the government through the congressional internship program . Gaffney outlines a theory that since the ACU is allowing the leader of an organization known as Muslims for America , a conservative group with ties to the GOP, to participate in CPAC, the ACU is supporting a “stealthy effort to bring Shariah” to America. He is also outraged that Grover Norquist , the head of the highly influential Americans for Tax Reform and a GOProud board member, is involved in CPAC as well. But mostly, Gaffney directs his vitriol at Suhail Khan , the chairman of the Conservative Inclusion Coalition. Both Khan and Norquist are ACU board members, and in 2009 Khan received the Young Conservatives Coalition’s Buckley Award at CPAC. But according to Gaffney , Khan has ties to radical Islamists and, along with Norquist, wants to promote a “seditious totalitarian political program” in the U.S.
Continue reading …Some of Barry Bonds’ former teammates, along with other retired Major League Baseball players, will have to testify at the slugger’s upcoming perjury trial. But evidence from Bonds’ former trainer Greg Anderson likely will be excluded (Jan. 21)
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