Crows ... smarter than some people

Michele Bachmann: "CO2 Is A Natural Byproduct of Nature!"

This woman is so fucking stupid!

Cat in a Box

Yes, even more stupid pet tricks.

Connecting climate change and economic recovery

Economist Nicholas Stern discusses the downturn and its effect on the climate change agenda.

The Language of Swearing with Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker - The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature

Our conceptions of human nature affect every aspect of our lives, from the way we raise our children to the political movements we embrace. Yet just as science is bringing us into a golden age of understanding human nature, many people are hostile to the very idea. They fear that discoveries about innate patterns of thinking and feeling may be used to justify inequality, to subvert social change, to dissolve personal responsibility, and to strip life of meaning and purpose. In The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker, bestselling author of The Language Instinct and How the Mind Works, explores the idea of human nature and its moral, emotional, and political colorings. He shows how many intellectuals have denied the existence of human nature by embracing three linked dogmas: The Blank Slate (the mind has no innate traits), The Noble Savage (people are born good and corrupted by society), and The Ghost in the Machine (each of us has a soul that makes choices free from biology). Each dogma carries a moral burden, so their defenders have engaged in the desperate tactics to discredit the scientists who are now challenging them. Pinker tries to inject calm and rationality into these debates by showing that equality, progress, responsibility, and purpose have nothing to fear from discoveries about rich human nature. He disarms even the most menacing threats with clear thinking, common sense, and pertinent facts from science and history. Despite its popularity among intellectuals during much of the twentieth century, he argues, the doctrine of the Blank Slate may have done more harm than good. It denies our common humanity and our individual preferences, replaces hardheaded analyses of social problems with feel-good slogans, and distorts our understanding of government, violence, parenting, and the arts.

The stuff of thought

In an exclusive preview of his book The Stuff of Thought, Steven Pinker looks at language and how it expresses what goes on in our minds -- and how the words we choose communicate much more than we realize.

Coaching for people, not points

With profound simplicity, Coach John Wooden redefines success and urges us all to pursue the best in ourselves. In this inspiring talk he shares the advice he gave his players at UCLA, quotes poetry and remembers his father's wisdom.

How ‘animal spirits’ destabilize economies

Robert Shiller is the Arthur M. Okun Professor of Economics at Yale University. In this video interview, he describes the role played in our economy by “animal spirits,” the subject of his new book written with George A. Akerlof, the Koshland Professor of Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. The text below is adapted from Animal Spirits.

Cute, sexy, sweet and funny -- an evolutionary riddle

Why are babies cute? Why is cake sweet? Philosopher Dan Dennett has answers you wouldn't expect, as he shares evolution's counterintuitive reasoning on cute, sweet and sexy things (plus a new theory from Matthew Hurley on why jokes are funny).

Why are we happy? Why aren't we happy?

Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we’ll be miserable if we don’t get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things don’t go as planned.

What positive psychology can help you become

Martin Seligman talks about psychology -- as a field of study and as it works one-on-one with each patient and each practitioner. As it moves beyond a focus on disease, what can modern psychology help us to become?

Martin Seligman is the founder of positive psychology, a field of study that examines healthy states, such as happiness, strength of character and optimism.

The Boy With The Incredible Brain

More on Daniel Tammet on Wikipedia:

Daniel Paul Tammet (born 31 January 1979) is a British high-functioning autistic savant gifted with a facility for mathematical and natural language learning. He was born Daniel Corney (later deciding to change his surname to Tammet), the first of nine children, to working-class parents in London. In his memoir, Born on a Blue Day, he talks about how having epilepsy, synaesthesia, and Asperger Syndrome all deeply affected his childhood.

SprintCam V3 HD - Extreme slow motion!

More on the SprintCam V3 HD.

Segway RMP

Wes - Alane

More on Wes Madiko on Wikipedia:

Wes Madiko (born January 15, 1964 in Motaba, Cameroon), better known as Wes, is a Cameroonian musician. He is probably best known among Western audiences for In Youpendi, a song from The Lion King II soundtrack, as well as work with Deep Forest and his own 1997 hit "Alane".

Rashni Punjaabi - Chant Of The Magic Flute

Be patient ... this is being streamed from China, and it's audio only.

Pigbag - Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag

More on Pigbag can be found on Wikipedia ... and yeah, this isn't a music video.

Peter Gabriel & Deep Forest - While The Earth Sleeps

There really isn't a music video for this song.

Original lyrics in Macedonian ... English translation: Do you know, mother / How unlucky I am? / All day I sit at home / I am not allowed outside

Oceania (Hinewehi Mohi) - Haere Ra

Hinewehi Mohi is a Maori poet and singer. A little from Wikipedia:

Hinewehi Mohi was born in Waipukuraussa and currently resides in Auckland. She studied at the University of Waikato. Her first album was Oceania (1999), where she worked with Jaz Coleman with. The album was released internationally, and sold exclusively in New Zealand for platinum.

Lyrics: My voice reaches out to you / Resounding over the highest mountain / Weaving through the contours of the land / Floating across oceans / I am love sick / You with gentle eyes, soft eye lashes / Warm to the touch / My love, my true love / You are the love of my life / My love, my heart

Loreena McKennitt - Mummers' Dance

More on Loreena McKennitt at Wikipedia, and the lyrics for Mummers' Dance can be found here.

Geinoh Yamashirogumi - Kaneda

More on Wikipedia:

Geinoh Yamashirogumi (Japanese: 芸能山城組, Geinō Yamashirogumi) is a Japanese musical collective founded on January 19, 1974 by Tsutomu Ōhashi, consisting of hundreds of people from all walks of life: journalists, doctors, engineers, students, businessmen, etc.

They are known for both their faithful re-creations of folk music from around the world, as well as their fusion of various traditional musical styles with modern instrumentation and synthesizers. For example, in the 1980s, MIDI digital synthesizers could not handle the tuning systems of traditional gamelan music, so the group had to teach themselves how to program in order to modify their equipment. The album that followed, Ecophony Rinne (1986) was a new direction for the group : they had not previously incorporated computer-generated sounds into their work. The success of this album brought them to the attention of Katsuhiro Ōtomo, who commissioned them to create the soundtrack of Akira. The soundtrack is built on the concept of recurrent themes or "modules". Texturally, the soundtrack is a mix of digital synthesizers (Roland D-50, etc), Indonesian chromatic percussion (jegog, etc.), traditional Japanese theatrical and spiritual music (Noh), European classical, and progressive rock.

Geinoh Yamashirogumi has reproduced over eighty different styles of traditional music and performances from around the world, but despite having performed internationally to a high degree of critical acclaim, they remain relatively unknown.

It has been written that Yamashiro took his inspiration from a postwar 1950s group of similar characters that lived as a commune, but this could be apocryphal.

Dadawa - Sister Drum

Background info can be found on Wikipedia:

Sister Drum (阿姐鼓) is an album by Chinese singer Dadawa, which heavily focuses on the politics of Tibet. The album is notable for being the first Asian CD to ship over one million copies in China. The album sparked an outrage for white-washing China's relationship with Tibet and exploiting the Tibetan culture in a commercial manner. A music video was made for the title track.

A History of Evil

Visions of Frank

Animation based on Jim Woodring's Frank comics.

History of the Internet

What do you mean Jesus doesn't exist?