Sheeped Away

You know how it is. Sometimes a farmer just wants to be alone with his sheep friends in Farmland. Oh, but there are hidden dangers just lurking about! You never know when a UFO will come whisking by and carry you away.

Just cops doing their job.

The evidence is obvious if you’ve been reading between the lines. A plurality of Americans are sharing the love. The majority are implying that Republicans have ignored the feelings of Americans far too long. The latest train wreck — the debt crisis debacle.

Independents are starting to lose favor with the conservative crowd, especially the tea party. A recent poll revealed that 71% of the people are past fed up with the handling of the debt crisis. Obama certainly has not escaped the scathing reviews either. The unemployment factor and a weak show of leadership has overshadowed his reign in office.

The rebuttal is a clear victory for the liberal side of the fence. The hugely unpopular wars — and the spreading of troops around the planet are destroying the American economy. The bailouts have only profited the ultra wealthy. The average American got stuck with the bill and the discontent is intensifying.

Who are Americans holding accountable? On the whole, the Republicans are getting the brunt of it. The bloodstained hands of citizens are growing tired of politicians in general. A runaway economy has mostly favored the rich, while Americans are getting layoff slips in droves. Cutting back in crisis mode caused the Great Depression. That seems to be the road where America is headed if the course is not changed.

The Bush tax cuts are viewed publicly to be the root of the fiscal problem. The hard core base of Republicans strongly defend the tax cuts, even if it means political extermination. And that may be the end result.

The flamboyant Steven Tyler is known to parade in the latest fashion, well whatever he chooses to wear. The American Idol judge is certainly used to trends and he’s got the cash to buy whatever he wants.

Steven has hair salons smiling and he’s got fly fishermen frowning. How does a song and dance man who has a penchant for style get himself into such a plight of feather fancy? Steven helped to start a trend by wearing feather hair extensions on American Idol, the kind that are made from rooster feathers.

Fly fishermen use the fly lure in the art of fishing. Artificial flies are made from bird feathers, animal fur, hair and a host of other things. Demand has been particulary high this summer for the lures with feathers because the trend setters are buying up all the rooster feathers. That’s supply and demand for you.

As for Tom Whiting, the president and owner of Whiting Farms, Inc, a vacation is a hard thing to come by these days. Tom calls it a hackle business.

While fly shops around the country run out of feathers, hair stylists are gaining flocks of customers that want the pricey feathers adorned in their hair. Business seems to be booming for them. Gabrielle Aquaro is one among many of stylists that has discovered the feather-in-hair trend.

What famous celebrities are going with this trend? Steven Tyler, Miley Cyrus, and Hilary Duff are sporting the feather hair extensions @ Amazon.

“Planking” in Taunton By boliston

Journalism 2.0 has exploded with the term “planking”.

Wikipedia refers to it as the Lying down game — “An activity, popular in various parts of the world, consisting of lying face down in an unusual or incongruous location. The hands must touch the sides of the body; having a photograph of the participant taken and posted on the Internet is an integral part of the game.”

And the article goes on to say that Gary Clarkson and Christian Langdon invented the Lying Down Game in 1997, in North East England. The two creators even have a website about this new form of art.

Planking was sweeping Britain by late 2010. It hit the news in 2009 when seven doctors and nurses working at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon, England were suspended for planking while on duty. But the term “planking” would be coined on the shores of Australia.

Planking became a craze in Australia. There’s the popular video Planking Craze.  There’s the Planking Australia page on Facebook.

Australian talkshow host and TV Queen Kerri-Anne Kennerley opened her show planking.

But getting to the point here. Planking became popularized in 2011 and there are observations to absorb here.

Fads, trends, and all the above are constantly being swayed by the internet crowd. This is how we’re getting our news and information now. You may have seen a version on the local TV network in your hometown, but that was after the internet community had already digested it. The chances are that you’ll catch the story online hours (if not days) ahead of time, long before you view it on the evening news. True?

Netizens are becoming  journalists, reporters, and editors. Netizens have become the deliverer and audience on the same stroke. Netizens have their own favorite RSS feed. It’s called Twitter. Netizens have their own camera. It’s called YouTube. And the quality of news on YouTube is outstanding. It’s really hard to beat.

Another observation one could discuss is the quantity of fads that are making headlines on news pages online. What does this say about online journalism? Are popular websites running stories like this to gain a bigger audience? Does journalism suffer with quality because of this?

Good or bad, I would argue that we are starting to see the effects of commercialism online. It’s inevitable. But the good things outweigh the bad by far. At least people are reading and interacting now. And we do have alternative sources to find information, rather than relying on media of yesterday.

The big difference is how internet connoisseurs get the news delivered to them — only now they choose what they like and what they don’t like. The newsroom has to compete online, where offline there seems to be a tremendous void. Social media has played a key role in filling that void. Newspapers and others had better jump on the viral bandwagon and soon. Or else they take the risk of becoming food for the buzzards.

Wait a minute… Are you posting your plank of the day on Facebook?

NEW YORK – Watch American rock singer-songwriter David Cook play live — 6:00 PM – 7:00 PM EDT on Jun 28th, 2011. The American Idol 7th season winner has toured all over the world after rising to fame.

David Cook (Official Website) will be promoting his second major-label studio album titled — This Loud Morning, which should be released on June 28, 2011.

Location:
1 Union Square E
Corner of 14th St and 4th Ave
New York, NY 10003

This Loud Morning’s confirmed tracklist:

No. | Title Writer(s) | Length |
1. “Circadian” David Hodges, Neal Tiemann 4:53
2. “Right Here, with You” Ryan Star, Johnny Rzeznik, Gregg Wattenberg 3:18
3. “We Believe” Julian Emery, Jim Irvin 4:22
4. “Fade Into Me” Kevin Griffin, Jamie Houston 4:06
5. “Hard to Believe” Hodges, Jess Cates, Lindy Robbins 3:52
6. “Take Me As I Am” Marti Frederiksen, Scott Stevens 4:06
7. “Time Marches On” Frederiksen 3:42
8. “The Last Goodbye” Ryan Tedder 3:00
9. “Paper Heart” Emery, Irvin 3:36
10. “4 Letter Word” Claude Kelly, Matt Squire 3:09
11. “Goodbye to The Girl” Tiemann, Andy Skib 4:18
12. “Rapid Eye Movement” Hodges 5:52
[Source: Wikipedia]

The popular TV show called Saturday Night Live (SNL) has landed on the shores of Japan. Japan now has its own version — “Saturday Night Live JPN”.

Starring Koji Imada, Takashi Yoshimura, Yuji Ayabe, Natsuna, etc.

The show is broadcasted live at midnight, of course on Saturday night. Every week a different host. The voiceover guy sounds just like Don Pardo, the American voiceover for SNL.

The voiceover on SNL Japan is Peter von Gomm. He sounds just like Don Pardo doesn’t he?

By the way, voice actor and announcer Don Pardo has turned 93 years old! That’s amazing.

[Via Hollywood-News Japan]

President Obama certainly left heads of Republicans shaking as he delivered a speech that overwhelmed the audience. The crowd was very dismayed at his unannounced guest appearance.

Obama briefly discussed the sagging economy, the national debt, his foreign policy, and his stay in the White House.

However, Republicans were not used to the unusual witty candor displayed by Obama. He shared a few laughs with them and seemed to be in rare form.

A few members of the GOP even had to take a moment to respond to his address. The applaud was intense at times. Nonetheless, members seemed largely unmoved by his themes.

President Obama offered a welcoming contrast to the conservative audience. Obama painfully referred to himself as a target of the GOP.

The reaction to Obama’s speech was numbing. The right wingers were not very impressed at all. Obama replied that he was ready to run against anybody at any time. It’s believed that Obama is trying to regain voter support from the independents.

Based on what you saw in the video, what was your reaction to Obama’s speech?

Meat is meat. There’s beef, chicken, and pork. There’s dog and cat. Knowing how to prepare the meat is what really counts.

The plat du jour here today is going to be Dog on a Stone Plate. The leg is the best part because it doesn’t have any fat on it. All you do is cook it and leave the skin on it. Just add red and green peppers, along with other ingredients.

But you probably don’t know the real secret ingredient in the dish. Do you?

It’s called Herba Agastaches. Agastaches is used interchangably with Herba Pogostemonis, also known in Chinese as Huo Xiang.

It’s supposed to be good for food poisoning also.

More information on the Medicine Herb page.

It seems like there’s been a major focus on leaks and whistleblowers in the year of 2011. After watching the disturbing video called Collateral Murder, one could surely be taken aback, even nauseated maybe. Some things we see in the news leaves us thinking.

There’s the WikiLeaks issue, a mysterious man (Julian Assange) that appears out of thin air and claims to have gotten cables from secured documents. Not just little secrets either. Big ones that could damage reputations and possibly endanger lives. Those clandestine whistleblowers! How do they get away with it all?

The press coverage of WikiLeaks has become quite substantial. Don’t you think?

But overall it hasn’t been a good year for whistleblowers. One could even argue that the Obama administration is very tough on whistleblowers. Take for instance, the Thomas Drake case. Make a note, the court will take into account if you accept responsibility for whistleblowing. If you’re going to be a whistleblower, please do it responsibly…

What’s remarkable is that you have whistleblowers covering whistleblowers.

Even more so, it’s astonishingly strange that prior to the launching of the project, mainstream media had contacted WikiLeaks. Wait just a minute there. I thought that WikiLeaks was doing the job that mainstream media wasn’t covering properly. Am I being baited? Hook, line, and sinker?

As the extremely talented researcher Michel Chossudovsky writes, “But there is more than meets the eye.” So what’s the deal here? Is WikiLeaks no more than a coverup of a coverup? A masquerade? Deceptive marketing?

It appears that the WikiLeaks organization was not so randomly put together as we once established. They were recruiting for a staff and secure funding from whom? Corporations? Tax-exempt charitable organizations? That sounds kind of fishy to me.

So maybe WikiLeaks is not an alternative source to the media. “The New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel are directly involved in the editing and selection of leaked documents. The London Economist has also played an important role.”

Are we fighting disinformation with more disinformation? Is this more of a  fog bank created by the elitists?

Are there more dark secrets that are being kept hidden from the public?