French "The Voice" Contestant Wows With A Twist On The Village People

This woman, on the French version of "The Voice" show
us the right way to do the YMCA.

As people who read this blog thingy know, I'm one of those hopeless people who's a fan of some talent competition shows on TV, with "The Voice" being one of my favorites.

I missed the season debut of "The Voice" this week, so I was rummaging on YouTube to see what happened, and there's was some great auditions here in the Great Old U.S. of A.

But as you know, every place in the universe, probably including Neptune, has a "The Voice" franchise, and I stumbled upon some recent auditions from France.

One of them was by a woman named Nathalia, who did a version of the Village People song "YMCA"

The original song has frankly become a tired cliche of a tune that is played at every bad wedding you've been to. However, Nathalia turned "YMCA" into something flirty, gorgeous, new, powerful, playful, soulful and sexy.

As you might know, during "The Voice" auditions, the judges, all musicians, sit in chairs with their backs to the stage so they can't see what the performer looks like. They must rely just on what they hear. If the judges like what they hear, they press a button and their chair turns to face the performer.

Not surprisingly, all four French "The Voice" chairs very quickly turned for Nathalia.

Here's the video

Sportscaster Dale Hansen's Comments On NFL "Take The Knee" Is Required Watching

WFAA sportscaster Dale Hansen just gave us an epic
takedown of Trump and his NFL protest nonsense.

There's a great sportscaster at television station WFAA in Dallas named Dale Hansen who's been there forever.  

The man is awesome. I first wrote about him in this here blog thingy back in 2014, when he came to the defense of Michael Sam, an NFL draft pick who was openly gay, something that would hurt his chances of become an NFL player

Hansen shredded the anti-gay bigots who would keep Sam out of the NFL spectacularly.

Hansen has done a lot of other great commentaries over the years, but this time, his words are required reading, or at least the video of him delivering those words are required watching. That video is at the bottom of this post. You HAVE to watch it.

This time, Hansen takes on Trump's appalling criticism of NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest violence against African Americans.

Here's just on excerpt, which gives you a taste of what you will watch:

"It has not gone unnoticed that Trump has spoken out against the Mexicans who want to come to America for a better life, against the Muslims, and now the black athlete. But he says nothing for days about the white men who marched under a Nazi flag in Charlottesville, except to remind us there were good people there. '

And when he finally tried to say the right thing, not one of them was called an S.O.B. or should be fired. We have white men in America who wave the Nazi flag and the Confederate flag and he's concerned about taking a knee because it disrespects this flag. We use that flag to sell mattresses and beer. We wear it as a swimsuit. We wrap our bald heads in a flag bandana and stick it in our pants, because we disrespect the flag every day."

Here's the video:

Trump's NFL Protest Statement Sticks In My Craw More Than Usual

NFL players in pretty much all of Sunday's game
took the knee in solidarity against Trump

Donald Trump doesn't like it when people disagree with him. And he always sounds off on it.

We should be used to it by now. And the latest dust up should be just another in a long series of stupid Trump sideshows. But for some reason, the NFL protest comments Trump made in Alabama just stick in my craw.

And everybody else. He stepped in it, and everybody is rebelling. It's amazing how many NFL games today are doing the whole kneeling and locking arms thing in defiance against Trump.

Friday night, it was NFL players who kneel during the national anthem to protest how police often treat African-Americans.

As related in the Daily Kos:

"'That's a total disrespect of our heritage. That's a total disrespect of everything that we stand for,' he said, encouraging owners to act. 

'Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flags, you'd say, Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He's fired,'" Trump said to loud applause.'

So a peaceful protest - protected by the First Amendment - is a bad thing that should be criticized, but marching menacingly as a neo-Nazi white supremacist in Charlottesville is OK?

Twitter the cable "news" outfits and other outlets have been a shoutfest ever since the comments made the light of day.

Once again, Trump - or one of his evil, dumb minions, are trying to get people fired from doing something completely benign: Peacefully protesting, without causing injury, harm or a lot of disruption, really.

That's really something. And so un-American.  A president trying to get private employers to fire people who have viewpoints that he doesn't like.

In the grand scheme of things, when things like Trump's warmongering with North Korea, the suffering of people in post-hurricane Puerto Rico, and Russia's meddling are going on, a jerk like Trump insulting NFL players is not the biggest crisis in the world.

But this has really touched a nerve.  People really cherish the right to speak out, even if they disagree with others speaking out. Sure, some of the right wing wackos on those cable shoutfests say the NFL players who 'take the knee" during the national anthem are somehow disrespecting the flag, which is nonsense.

They actually ARE respecting the flag by participating in their own way to improve the nation. Efforts to make this a better nation are by definition patriotic.

But Trump only cares about his ignorant base. So he caters to them, because the deplorables can only understand the red meat Trump throws at them.

The National Review admits this:

"(Trump) takes a commonly held sentiment - most people don't like the NFL protests - and states it in an inflammatory way guaranteed to get everyone's attention and generate outrage among his critics. When those critics lash back at him, Trump is put in the position of getting attacked for a fairly commonsensical view. 

Of course, NFL owners firing players on the spot for protesting isn't necessarily common sense, but this where 'seriously, not literally' comes in. Since everyone knows that owners aren't going to do this, Trump's statement registers for his supporters merely as forceful opposition to the protests, not as a specific plan of action."

The flaw with this argument is the critics seem to outnumber the base. A lot of people who once disliked the NFL protests suddenly see their value, or at least can muster some sympathy for them.

Which is why the number one hashtag on Twitter overnight and today has been #TakeTheKnee.

That even NFL owners who supported Trump and even donating to him are not happy with the so-called president's whines.

Patriots owner Robert Kraft, who previous called Trump a very good friend, said he was "deeply disappointed by Trump's comments."

"I think our political leaders could learn a lot from the lessons of teamwork and the importance of working together toward a common goal.... Our players are intelligent, thoughtful, and care deeply about our community and I support their right to peacefully affect social change and raise awareness in a manner that they feel is impactful."

At today's Detroil Lions game, not only did the team take the knee, so did singer Rico Lavelle when he finished singing the national anthem.

Donald Trump loves to cause division. It diverts attention from his misdeeds. So the more we argue among ourselves, the more he loves it. He started another big argument. And he did it classlessly, as usual, by using words like "bitch" and such.

It seems people are still more united than he would like. A few Trump partisans are appalled by the NFL protests, yes, but most of us are watching the First Amendment at work at NFL sidelines of all places.

That's a great thing to watch.

Teresa Kaepernick @B4IleaveU

Replying to @JamilSmith

Guess that makes me a proud bitch!

Eric Ebron 

✔@Ebron85

Does anyone tell trump to stick to politics, like they tell us to stick to sports? Smh.

Ben Gardner @BenGardner87

To be clear, Colin Kaepernick's "crime" is protesting systemic racism and police brutality. Trump called him a "son of a bitch" tonight.

Manny Fidel 

✔@mannyfidel

Trump on Kaepernick: son of a bitch!

Trump on Nazis: they're bad but like lol idkhttps://twitter.com/dcexaminer/status/911407560938442757 …

Guy Smashes Windows And Gets Instant Karma

Not entire sure if the video in this post is legit or fake or real, but it proves the adage that sometimes instant karma can strike sooner than you'd think.  

Judging from the comments in Polish, I think this happened in Poland. Not sure when. Some idiot decides to randomly start smashing out shop windows.

Another guy tries to stop him, but the window smasher almost beats up the the guy who tried to stop him. The guy who tries to stop the vandalism backs off and appears to be calling police on his cell phone.

The window smasher continues his handiwork, and then, decides to run away. And then.........

Watch the video:

Worst Campaign Ad Ever? Here's A Contender

A scene from perhaps the worst campaign ad ever

The video at the bottom of this post could be the worst campaign ad ever. And a lot of people agree with me. 

Democrat Dan Helmer is running for a U.S. House seat in Virginia.

So he put up an ad that is a parody of the scene in the movie "Top Gun" in which Tom Cruise sings "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin' to Kelly McGillis in a bar, and then everybody in the bar joins in.

Here, we have Helmer in the bar singing "You've Lost That Centrist Feelin." to an actor playing his opponent. Rep. Barbara Comstock.

Yeah, it's as bad as it sounds. Watch if you dare:

Simon And Garfunkle Parody Sum Up Trump

Quite a little Simon and Garfunkel parody here

Funny, I don't remember the classic Simon and Garfunkle song "Sounds of Silence" starting this way:

"Hello darkness my old friend  
It's time for him to tweet again. 
but first he'll have to check in with Fox news
'cause that's the only place he gets his clues..."

Yep, the song has been reworked for the Trump era. It's done by the Parody Project, who have a YouTube channel featuring classic songs redone and parodied to tweak our tweeting president.

Some more sample lyrics:

"That's how things get planted in his brain
where they remain'
and it confounds the science.
The problem is he's not alone
He tweets to people on the phone
that global warming is a giant hoax
perpetrated by the liberal folks
and he hires people that all think the same
that play his game
and it confounds the science."

Here's a couple of Simon and Garfunkle Trump parody videos from this outfit. The first is the "Sounds of Silence reworked to become "Confounds the Science" as described above.




Next we have a parody of "The Boxer"

This Smart Dog Knows How To Get Ready For A Walk

This very smart dog named Ziggy knows how
to prepare to go out for a "walkie"

Ziggy the dog insanely loves to go for walks, and when his human companion suggests they take one, Ziggy gets ecstatic.

However, when you go for a walk, you have to take certain things with you.

Ziggy is smart enough to know just how to prepare to go outside, as you'll see in the video below.

The video is something like seven months old, but has recently gone even more viral than it was.

Very entertaining:

Alex Jones Is Looking To Hire. Sane People Need Not Apply

Would you work for this guy? He's hiring. 

I love picking on Alex Jones because he's such an easy target, and let's face it, I'm a bully.

The latest news, as reported in the Huffington Post and other news outlets, is Jones is looking to hire more employees at his batshit InfoWars network.

As the Huffington Post notes, a lot of people had a lot of fun making tongue-in-cheek  "job inquiries" on social media.

Some of my favorites:

--- Does your insurance plan cover chemtrails?

--- I will have my lizard people send uou my resume via chemtrail, as we discussed earlier telepathically.

 --- Do you provide tin foil hats, or do I have to provide my own?

--- Does the commitment have to be court-ordered, or is voluntary commitment sufficient?

--- What is the preferred number of false flag jobs a candidate needs in their resume?

Irma Emergency Sign Language Interpreter Not Up To The Job

The guy in the yellow shirt was definitely not qualified to
be a sign language intepreter duirng an Irma briefing.  

Often during important announcements and press briefings, you'll often find a sign language interpreter there, too, relaying the crucial information to people who are hearing impaired.

In the video you'll see below, the interpreter clearly wasn't up to the job. You'll hear what the Manatee County, Florida emergency manager has to say, and what the sign language interpreter in the yellow shirt was relaying.

For instance, the emergency manager said, "You need to be safe." The interpreter came up with "Need to bear monster."

To be fair to the intepreter, he was not a professional, and he knew it. He was just some random guy who works as a marine rescuer for Manatee County who happens to have a hearing impaired brother.

The emergency operations center asked him to intepret, he said no because he was not qualified enough, but they coerced him into doing it, with disastrous results.  So it's not really the fault of the guy in the yellow shirt.

Advocates for the  hearing impaired said the county should have used the services of a company that provides certified interpreters. One was available, says ABC News.

But here's the video anyway:

At Least Eight Years Of Selfies Manages To Make Compelling Video

Sometimes, people who take a lot of selfies seem, well, self-absorbed.

Hugo Cornellier of Montreal took a selfie every day
since he was 12 and put them all together in a
really neat video

But in some cases, the whole thing turns out pretty cool.  

Such is the case with Hugo Cornellier of the Montreal area of Canada. Starting at age 12, he took a selfie every day. Through at least this past August. 

Pretty much all of the selfies are of him sitting in front of the computer, a fairly expressionless look on his face in each photo.

In these nine or so years, he amassed 2,500 or so of these selfies. 

Cornellier then compiled them into a really cool video. The video starts with him, age 12 as I said, boyish and young, and passes through time as beards come and go, haircuts grow long and short. 

One of the fun things about the video, which you can see at the bottom of this post, is the changes in the hair. It looks like he's being windblown a bit. 

To make the video cooler, he manually stabilized the images so that his face is in the exact center of the video's frame, according to Petapixal.com.  Even as the background shifts, Cornellier is in exactly the same spot. 

The video ends nicely with the day he got married, and those photos are a departure from the 2,500 others. There's just a few images of enjoying his big day with his new bride.

Here's the video:

The Gays Did It

This wacko says Texas was devastated by
Hurricane Harvey because The Gays Did It.

I notice this repeatedly with every disaster.

The religious nutjobs all blame The Gays whenever there's a calamity. It's like clockwork.

It's as much of a cliche as TV reporters getting blown away while yelling into a camera on a hurricane-blasted beach.

We saw "The Gays Did It" with Hurricane Harvey and we'll surely see it if Hurricane Irma turns out as bad as feared.

Here's an account from Right Wing Watch:

"Extremist anti-LGBTQ pastor Kevin Swanson is joining other radical religious right activists in declaring that Hurricane Harvey is God's judgment on Houston and other cities the refuse to repent for their embrace of 'sexual perversion.'.....

"....Swanson said it is no coincidence that Houston was hit by this storm because 'it was persecutiving pastors and churches' and recently had a 'very, very aggressively pro-homosexual mayor. On top of that, the Texas legislature recently failed ot pass a bill 'that would have prevented cross-dressing men from using the women's restrooms' because 'they wanted to encourage the abomination of men attempting to dress lie women and women to dress like men.'"

Phew! That's a lot to unpack.

I'm sure Swanson and his ilk are too snowflakey and just plain flakey to sit down with someone to see if we can pick apart their logic.

But I would love to get in the same room with him and force him to answer these questions:

If God hated the former lesbian mayor of Houston, why now with the flood? She's not the mayor anymore.

Surely, some of Harvey's victims did not vote for that former mayor and some probably supported the failed "bathroom bill" in Texas in which transgendered people would have been prevented from using restrooms that go along with their current gender.

So why were your allies victimized by Harvey and by extension God, Mr. Swanson?

The Harvey flooding and devastation was, if anything, even worse in Port Arthur and Beaumont, Texas. Those cities are pretty conservative and I think neither ever had a gay mayor (but I could be mistaken)

So why the suffering in Port Arthur and Beaumont?

Why is it always The Gays that prompt God to unleash disasters on unsuspecting cities? Why doesn't God also smite cities that have adulterers, liars, sinners, etc. Only the Gays. Makes me suspect you think God might be a self-loathing closeted gay person. Is that what you think?

Today, Right Wing Watch told us about another loathesome "preacher," Jim Bakker, who used Houston to say The Gays Did It and to hawk his line of survivalist products.

Hey, nothing like making a buck off of God's imagined wrath, right?

All this is meant to get the general public to hate gays, because The Gays seem to be causing one cataclysm after another. I can't believe that these purveyers of The Gays Did It don't realize that nobody is buying it, and everybody is laughing at them.

Probably even God is laughing at them at this point.

Even people who don't really believe The Gays Did It rejoice in bringing it up. The odious Ann Coulter got a lot of heat after Harvey when she Tweeted:

"I don't believe Hurricane Harvey is God's punishment for Houston electing a lesbian mayor. But that's more credible than 'climate change.'

Okey dokey.

The former Houston mayor, Annise Parker responded via Twitter: "Darn it, I thought no one knew I had super power over weather."

As a gay guy, I wish I did have such power.  I want to be one of the gays among those Gays Who Did It. Of course I would never want to unleash a disaster on anyone, including these weird "religious" nutcases. Nice weather for everyone, but with enough well-timed rain to prevent droughts.

I'd make exceptions, though. For the Gays Did It preachers and hucksters and swindlers, I would impose on them a lifetime of  low, dark overcast, fog and freezing drizzle. And nothing else.

There's plenty of real-life blame to go around for weather disaster. It's legitimate to blame the randomness of nature, bad luck, poor planning and development decisions, recklessness, even global warming.

We all know that most of us wouldn't want to make deadly disasters worse than they already are. Most of us have an impulse to help, which explains the many millions of dollars from so many Americans that are pouring into Texas for hurricane relief.

A few people like to make things worse, though. Or at least more bizarre. Like The Gays Did It crowd.

They're their own weird little disaster.

Gospel At Hurricane Shelter Is Just The Right Light In Moment Of Darkness

Victoria White (in the white dress) gave Hurricane Harvey
evacuees a needed and incredibly helpful dose of gospel
this week in Houston. 

Sorry I haven't been around much on this here blog thingy. I've been focusing on Hurricane Harvey on my sister blog, Matt's Weather Rapport.  

Today, I'm back with, well, a Harvey update.  

In a video that's gone totally viral, a group of gospel singers led by a woman named Victoria White lifted spirits in a Houston-area evacuation center. 

I'm definitely not a religious man, but you've got to find comfort where you can. Kudos to Victoria White for providing this totally needed dose of medicine to a roomful of people who had just reached the lowest point in their lives.

The video of what happened is below. (Kleenex alert with this one.)  Notice how the people in the shelter join in on the song. They all needed that.

After the video went viral, White had the following to say. Again, I'm not religious but this woman speaks the truth!

"I had no ide this was being recorded, but God had a plan!... Not only did He want to love on those gathered in Lone Star Expo Center who suffered loss at the hands of Hurricane Harvey, but He wanted to love on people across the world who were dealing with tbier own personal storms! That's the kind of loving God we serve - the kind who is equally concerned for the masses and the individual."

I'm not trying to get political here, but if I did believe in a God, White's version is the one that seems closest to reality. And not the God some so-called religious leaders espouse.

Thank you, Victoria White and the rest of these gospel singers. You brought a glimmer of joy to the people in Houston who needed it most. And we all need a glimmer of joy now and then even if our lives are going pretty well.

Well done,  Victoria!

Here's the video: