A short which has appeared at 34 film festivals and received 17 awards. Too warm and fuzzy for my taste, but some people may enjoy it.

16:23 video

Photo and video described as having been shot at Key West at Sunset, New Year’s Eve, December 31, 2008. It certainly looks like a missile. via Coast to Coast.

No official comments or MSM reports so far.

7:09 video

This characteristically enthusiastic Japanese nature program demonstrates the defensive behavior of the Southern White-faced Scops Owl (Ptilopsis granti), native to Southern Africa.

Confronted by a nearby Barn Owl (Tyto alba), it fluffs itself up into a very large owl. Seeing a more distant Barn Owl, it turns its less visible grey back toward the enemy and reduces its silhouette. All in all turning in a commendable Strigiperformance.

3:20 video

Hat tip to Labrat via Karen Myers.

This video, apparently shot in South Africa, shows what a wounded lion is capable of. After the initial shot, which appears to be a good hit and which definitely knocks the lion down, the (unusually large) hunting party approaches the lion, which rises and proceeds to charge at a speed resembling a fast car. The lion probably would have done more harm to the shooter if he had contacted his target at a slower speed. There is no way of knowing the result, but the person hit by 400-500 lbs. (182-226 kg.) of fast moving lion was undoubtedly injured. And was the second person hit, or did he fall to the ground leaping away from the lion’s path of exit? The fusillade of close range and desperately hasty high-powered rifle fire that occurred when the lion was in the midst of the hunting party looked pretty hazardous to me as well.

That was quite a lion. I expect Major Parker would have said that particular lion was a gentleman.

1:29 video

Stick figure runs amok on PC.

3:26 video

The antics of Bailey the dog enjoying the snow at his home near Ward, Colorado have attracted over 3,000,000 hits.

2:26 video

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

The appearance of the short version of this video on YouTube earlier this year attracted many hits.

The video shows a referee, identified as Isao Nakamura Fushiki, putting a decisive stop to some post-karate-match aggression on the part of the contestant in blue.

It was clearly posted with intent, being labeled “Karate Master attacks 17-year-old,” and comments on YouTube and on martial arts sites have been overwhelmingly harshly critical of the behavior of Fushiki.

Apparently, despite the video’s recent appearance, the actual incident occurred a long time (eleven years!) ago at Autonomous University of Tamaulipas in Mexico. No explanation for the video’s sudden appearance has been found.

Isao Nakamura Fushiki is identified on the Net as a 7th (or 10th) dan Goju Ryu master (one source says Shito Ryu) who was World Kata Champion in 1970, 1971, and 1972 (one source says he was champion five times during the 1970s). One commenter in Spanish says that he served as an Imperial bodyguard for Hirohito and was known to Japanese karate fans as “the madman.”

The event was clearly not a conventional karate match, since the blue-clad contestant is wearing a kung fu outfit rather than a gi. Various commenters claim that the contestant in white was Fushiki’s pupil or even younger brother.

His takedown was certainly effective, but his third strike, the foot stomp to the head, seems generally to be thought to have been excessive.

Short version: 0:33 video

Long version: 3:15 video

Built in 1901, and currently in considerable disrepair, this walkway, called El Caminito del Rey, serves as an entrance to Makinodromo, the famous climbing sector of El Chorro in Spanish Andalusia.

Wikipedia:

The walkway has now gone many years without maintenance, and is in a highly deteriorated and dangerous state. It is one meter (3 feet and 3 inches) in width, and is over 200 meters (700 feet) above the river. Nearly all of the path has no handrail. Some parts of the concrete walkway have completely collapsed and all that is remaining is the steel beam originally in place to hold it up and the wire that follows most of the path. One can latch onto a safety-wire to keep from falling. Several people have lost their lives on the walkway in recent years; after four people died in two accidents in 1999 and 2000, the local government closed the entrances. However, adventurous tourists still find their way onto the walkway to explore it.

The regional government of Andalusia budgeted in 2006 for a restoration plan estimated at € 7 million.

6:26 video.

Office worker burning the midnight oil finds an amazing opportunity at the copier machine.

2:49 video

Ever been wondering why that network printer doesn’t work?

1:03 video

Hat tip to Karen Myers and Anthony H. Mirra.

This 9:54 video looks at the impact of media coverage on average voters’ knowledge of the candidates.

From the Onion:

2:39 video

Hat tip to Daniel Lowenstein.

Obama never much liked the current national anthem anyway, and he’s already produced his own presidential seal and his own salute, so clearly a new Obama anthem must be in the works.

Glenn Beck imagines what it might be like.

1:27 video

Via Jawa Report and Newsbusters

An unidentified comedy team in Britain tests the memories and attention of some ordinary passersby.

2:05 video

Sarah Palin behaves like a good sport while the SNL crowd pack in as many anti-Palin, anti-McCain jibes as they possibly can.

Opening skit: Tina Fey impersonates Palin. Palin watches skit and meets Alec Baldwin.
5:14 video

Sarah Palin good-humoredly plays along with rap song bashing her.
3:03 video

A sad story.

“I walked up to the casino table with nothing really in my pocket. And I’m leavin’ with nothing really in my pocket. But in between that time? Man, was I on a roll.”

3:28 video

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Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

A good animated commentary from Reason TV:

4:05 video

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Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

How was it Karl Rove described Biden? Wasn’t it “blowhard doofus?”

0:19 video

In a 1985 interview, Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov reveals the KGB’s strategy of demoralization and describes the ultimate fate of Western sympathisers.

16:35 video

9:46 video

A Halloween treat from Iowahawk.

3:41 video

William Ayers trampling US flag during 2001 interview in which he says he “acted appropriately” with respect to his participation in terrorist bombings during the Vietnam War era. This interview took place while Ayers was serving with Obama on the Woods Fund Board.

Sarah Palin in fine form.

2:05 video

Hat tip to Bird Dog.
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More humor: CNN takes a hard look, and, what do you know? concludes Bill Ayers was just some guy who lives in Obama’s neighborhood. Obama has seen less of Ayers since beginning to run for president, and “there is nothing to suggest that Ayers is now involved in terrorist activity.”

Matt Drudge’s link doesn’t work. Here’s one which does.

3:24 video

The Huffington Post isn’t all bad.

Not only do they entertain us by publishing the rants of some of the silliest and most self important representatives of the community of fashion, why! here they’ve done the patriotic thing and posted a 0:37 video of Sarah Palin (née Heath)’s swimsuit appearance in the 1984 Miss Alaska Pageant.

1:04 Obama supporters’ video mocking Hillary.

Democrats are such nice people.

Hat tip to Larry Johnson.

1:53 video

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin.

He just grazes her arm, and though Tamara Urushadze takes cover, she bravely keeps reporting.

1:20 video

This video got my blood flowing. I was soon wishing that there was an American nearby with a scope-equipped ‘06 in the neighborhood able to reply. But then I wondered: how good was that Russian? He only fired once, and just grazed her arm. Why didn’t he fire again? There seemed to be time for a follow-up shot. Possibly, I thought, he actually fired to graze her deliberately, in a somewhat-heavy-handed gesture of Muscovite chivalry, warning her to get lost. Then, he allowed her to get way. It’s hard to be sure about that theory, though.

Hat tip to Gateway Pundit.

Paris Hilton was evidently piqued by John McCain using her in a recent campaign video, so she’s responding with her own

1:49 video reply.

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And the McCain campaign was quick to reply:

In the unkindest cut of all, McCain’s spokesperson Tucker Bounds (said) that on the subject of energy, Paris is deeper than Barack. He says, “Sounds like Paris is taking the ‘All of the Above’ energy approach that John McCain has advocated—both alternatives and drilling. Perhaps the reality is that Paris has a more substantive energy plan than Barack Obama.”

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Hat tip to Stephen Frankel.

Via Marc Ambinder.

0:30 video

From Moveon.org. Chic, witty, and featuring Tara from Buffy, but do you really want to compare what your candidate is peddling to a Venereal Disease?

You need to see this one in order to be ready to enjoy the parodies to come.

Penn & Teller get members of the public at a Worldfest gathering to sign one more environmentalist petition.

3:23 video

Is there really any difference between these people’s decision to support this particular environmentalist initiative and their decision to support any of the many others they currently support? Answer: Nope, not one iota of difference.

You can support this environmental action cause, too. link

Hat tip to Fred Karp.

Decisions by committee, you know what those are like.

4:32 video

Hat tip to Ketchup and Caviar.

Think you can cast?

0:57 video

The talented JibJab gang have delivered another of their good-humored, non-partisan political cartoons:

Time For Some Campaignin’

They’ve certainly gotten Obama right.

via The Onion:

1:50 video

Illustration by Randolph Caldecott (1846-1886)

One of the people on the Fox Hunting email list this morning posted a link to this project Gutenberg edition of the Caldecott Picture Book illustrating the old comic song.

But it’s no fun without the music, so here’s Peter Bellamy singing it, too. 2:37 video

The Fox Jumps Over the Parson’s Gate is one of many examples of popular humor exploiting the irresistibility to man or beast, without respect to age, dignity, or sex, of the impulse to follow hounds after the fox.

Filmmaker Paul Budline questions Obama’s patriotism in this short video on his association with, the now comfortably ensconced in liberal establishment of Chicago, 1960s radicals Bernardine Dohrn and William Ayers.

1:24 video

Via Tigerhawk.

Andrew Sullivan commends to our attention this Indian music video, with subtitles attempting to capture its apparently ?English-language? lyrics.

4:39 video

The ineffable Christopher Hitchens trashes the lot of them.

Hillary Clinton & Michelle Obama: “The rage of the entitled on how they didn’t get it all, handed to them on a skewer… with a dollop of Béarnaise Sauce on it.”

Barack Obama: “If you have a candidate whose is as obviously suave and pretty coldly…well, let’s say ‘coolly’ (to be neutral) calculating, and politically as intelligent as the Senator, if he ties such a huge can to his tail, such a big, dirty, rattling can, and he can’t get rid of it, wait a minute! which is it? is he very crass or is he very suave?”

The GOP: “If the Republican Party was, what?.. a dog, it should be shot.”

Bill Clinton: “A horrible primate.”

5:02 video

Hat tip to Charles Johnson.

Many years ago, an English foxhunter from Gloucestershire found a tiny female fox cub shivering in a field one morning after some heavy rains. Presumably the vixen had been trying to rear her litter of cubs in a drain culvert, and the family wound up dispersed when their home was flooded out. He took the cub home, where he and his wife raised her to adulthood. They named the cub “Samantha,” after a sexy film star of the period.

The fox was acclimated to the wild by being permitted to run around outdoors in the daytime, and was eventually released into the wild (after she developed an unfortunate habit of slaughtering a neighbor’s rare breed poultry in broad daylight).

He recently assembled and posted some period home movies of Samantha (which are delightful) on YouTube as a 3:05 video to share with an online foxhunting community.

The foxhunter apologized for the less than ideal quality of his video, which resulted from his slow Internet connection. Unfortunately, cable & DSL Internet connections are commonly not available out in the country.

Allahu Akhabar! Rusty Shackleford has an (inadvertently very funny) Islamist recruitment 0:36 video. They would never recruit Ace with this one.

Hat tip to Dr. Mercury.

Not terribly funny video satire offering a democrat’s view of Republicans, which has a few moments.

Arnold Jones (posed as American Gothic farmer, in tone of belligerent stupidity): “Because all other countries are inferior to us.”

Trudy Jones (American Gothic female): “We should start as many wars as it takes to keep it that way.”

3:28 video