O'Sullivan - brilliant, like a cracked mirror. The epitomy of a flawed genius.

For those totally unfamiliar with Snooker, let me explain a couple of points: Putting the black earns you 7 points, but you'll have to put one red before putting another.

So there really is only ONE way to get 147. you have to put all the balls in exactly this order. red,black,red,black.... and so on until all reds are down, then you HAVE to do yellow,green,brown,blue,pink and finish it of with black. ONLY that order. He could NOT, for instance, pop down the blue or something in the middle there, it HAS to be in this particular order.

Now, most of you have probably tried pool. And if you think pool is hard (like me) try just looking at a snooker table, its about twice as big, and the balls are smaller, and the holes are f¤%&&ing IMPOSSIBLE to put into. Not only are they smaller, but unlike a pool table, they have these rounded edges that makes it even harder.

So when I said this is hard, I really, really mean it. Only an elite few in the world can do this, and it doesnt happen often. Even in big star games like this reaching 100 is considered really, really good. The fact that O'sullivan does this one in 6 and a half minutes, and another one in 5 minutes and 20 seconds, makes him one of the coldest sons'o'bitches on the whole planet IMO, and its one of the greatest sports achievements ever.

Points for the various colors:

red-1

yellow-2
green-3
brown-4
blue-5
pink-6
black-7

Every color, except red, gets placed back on the table, for as long as there are reds left, so you COULD do red-blue,red-yellow, red-black and so on, except then you are "using up" reds to put low-scoring balls, so to make 147, you have to start with red-black,red-black etc.

When all the reds are down, the remaining balls, have to be done in the order of their points, from 2 to 7.

From Associated Press:

"Friday, February 22, 2008

PHOENIX — Charges may be forthcoming after a fight involving a Higley Unified School District bus driver and three teenagers that was captured on a security video, authorities said.

Gilbert police released a copy of a district videotape Thursday that shows a Williams Field High School girl and bus driver Kim Sullivan in a disagreement last Friday that escalates over the course of 15 minutes.

The tape shows both are verbally combative with each other.

Later, Sullivan takes the girl's cell phone and calls for security and a student on the bus called 911 after the bus had stopped and the shoving match began, the video shows.

Police are investigating three teens and Sullivan, 54, in connection with the situation.

Higley officials have sent a letter home to parents saying they are conducting their own investigation to determine what disciplinary measures to take."

I read The Daily Dish, and a few other things occasionally, like Matthew Yglesias and Politico, although that's not an opinion blog.

Thing to note, Sullivan seems to post the exact videos that make it to the top fifteen right before they are submitted to the Sift.

Politics has the ability to turn alot of voting age adults into idiots.

I mean take the concept of a political blog, most subscribe and follow those that appeal to their particular stances, they basically end up isolating themselves from alternative viewpoints.

Its very rare someone in their mold actually concedes to an alternative viewpoint, Andrew Sullivan of Daily Dish and John Cole of Balloon Juice are two examples I can cite personally where the posters reconsidered their political support. Cole supported Bush and is against him now, Sullivan is the same and is supporting Obama now while citing that conservatism is hollowed out by the last 7 years of Bush Co.

Also balkanization takes effect, this is seen in alot of right wing and left wing blogs, the usual - "LOOK what this liebral/wingnut/cunt said! go poop on him" posts package certain information in a skewed way meant to incite pre-conceieved stances against someone's viewpoint, by that time those who come to comment post utter garbage without really rationally looking at what someone is saying, or even attempting to deconstruct something logically.

i'm genuinely astonished this wasn't up here, already. however, dft?

what you've got right now, is pointing at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNxwAU_xAMk

...which is just some jagoff named j0sealan, who snatched, and re-uploaded, this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tcR19y7GPM

...which is the original work, by a genuinely funny guy named Liam Kyle Sullivan. it has 2.6 million views, to date, which certainly qualifies as *viral i would hope.

update the embed (and tags) accordingly, and blood muffins gets an upvote from me!

Someone reads Sullivan's The Daily Dish I see

"I hope we can understand, my friends, that life is not 24 and Jack Bauer..."

Scott Horton and Andrew Sullivan comment...

"The moral clarity and vision of McCain’s answer was perfectly balanced by the bankruptcy of Romney’s. In the end, the former Massachusetts governor ducks by saying that he would turn to his ultimate guru for guidance: Cofer Black, the Vice Chair of Blackwater USA. Mr. Black is known for his bravado, including a pledge to the White House that he would send them Osama bin Laden’s head in a box packed with dry ice. But of course it was Mr. Black who failed in efforts to catch bin Laden and other al Qaeda leaders as they disappeared into the caves and ravines of Tora Bora. He moved from that high accomplishment to Blackwater, which is now engulfed in a series of scandals reflecting questionable management practices. Moreover, CIA officers complain that Black’s move to Blackwater entailed the privatization of vital national security relationships for personal profit, another hallmark of abuse in the Bush Administration.

McCain is turning for guidance to American military tradition and ethics. Romey on the other hand draws on Hollywood cartoons and adventurists. It’s quite a difference. And at the moment, it looks like the Republican base will take Chuck Norris over George Washington and Dwight Eisenhower any day.

Among the other candidates in the Republican field, Huckabee is clearly in the process of transforming his position on the torture question. He’s drawing closer to John McCain’s view with each passing debate. I’ll go out on a limb and say we’ll soon see three Republican candidates taking a clear-cut anti-torture position: John McCain, Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee. Not coincidentally, the first two are the Republican candidates who consistently draw the most support from the active-duty military. Huckabee is clearly intent on pitching more effectively to the same community."

- Scott Horton

"It's a defining issue and this was a defining moment. Romney's pathetic and despicable inability to say that he opposes waterboarding and that waterboarding is torture disqualifies him from the presidency, in my view. If we are going to recover from the profound moral disgrace of the Bush-Cheney torture regime, McCain and Paul are the only Republican candidates who should be considered for the job. I just wish McCain had taken on Giuliani as well. But God bless him. And God bless him for insisting that those who refuse to disown torture should actively support withdrawal from the Geneva Conventions. It's the only honest position to take. I saw the man defeated by Cheney and Addington in 2006 come back to fight again. God bless him."

- Andrew Sullivan

Ahh, c'mon qualm. Just use a little imagination, and they're The Beatles, except Japanese. They even have moptops.

The guy at the end even looks like a younger, Japanese, Ed Sullivan, am I right?

1. What's Opera, Doc? (Warner Bros./1957)
2. Duck Amuck (Warner Bros./1953)
3. The Band Concert (Disney/1935)
4. Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century (Warner Bros./1953)
5. One Froggy Evening (Warner Bros./1956)
6. Gertie the Dinosaur (Winsor McCay/1914)
7. Red Hot Riding Hood (MGM/1943)
8. Porky in Wackyland (Warner Bros./1938)
9. Gerald McBoing Boing (UPA]/1951)
10. King-Size Canary (MGM/1947)
11. Three Little Pigs (Disney/1933)
12. Rabbit of Seville (Warner Bros./1950)
13. Steamboat Willie (Disney/1928)
14. The Old Mill (Disney/1937)
15. Bad Luck Blackie (MGM/1949)
16. The Great Piggy Bank Robbery (Warner Bros./1946)
17. Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor (Fleischer/1936)
18. The Skeleton Dance (Disney/1929)
19. Snow White (1933 cartoon) (Fleischer/1933)
20. Minnie the Moocher (Fleischer/1932)
21. Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs (Warner Bros./1943)
22. Der Fuehrer's Face (Disney/1943)
23. Little Rural Riding Hood (MGM/1949)
24. The Tell-Tale Heart (UPA/1953)
25. The Big Snit (National Film Board of Canada/1985)
26. Brave Little Tailor (Disney/1938)
27. Clock Cleaners (Disney/1937)
28. Northwest Hounded Police (MGM/1946)
29. Toot, Whistle, Plunk and Boom (Disney/1953)
30. Rabbit Seasoning (Warner Bros./1952)
31. The Scarlet Pumpernickel (Warner Bros./1950)
32. The Cat Came Back (National Film Board Of Canada/1988)
33. Superman (Fleischer/1941)
34. You Ought To Be in Pictures (Warner Bros./1940)
35. Ali Baba Bunny (Warner Bros./1957)
36. Feed the Kitty (Warner Bros./1952)
37. Bimbo's Initiation (Fleischer/1931)
38. Bambi Meets Godzilla (International Rocketship/1969)
39. Little Red Riding Rabbit (Warner Bros./1941)
40. Peace on Earth (MGM/1939)
41. Rooty Toot Toot (UPA/1952)
42. The Cat Concerto (MGM/1947)
43. The Barber of Seville (Lantz/1944)
44. The Man Who Planted Trees (National Film Board Of Canada/1987)
45. Book Revue (Warner Bros./1946)
46. Quasi at the Quackadero (Cruikshank/1975)
47. Corny Concerto (Warner Bros./1943)
48. Unicorn in the Garden (UPA/1953)
49. The Dover Boys (Warner Bros./1942)
50. Felix in Hollywood (Sullivan/1923)

Tags for this video have been changed from 'tapdance, rhythm, one legged, Ed Sullivan' to 'tapdance, rhythm, one legged, Ed Sullivan, 50s' - edited by swampgirl

Over the last few years there were reports that showed the US military dropping recruitment requirements and offering waivers in exchange for military service.

Reports of the Army unable to supply sufficiently armored vehicles and other equipment against IED threats, pre and post surge. Soldiers are now familiarizing combat driving techniques using simulators because there is a shortage of M-1114s.

America does possess formidable military forces, but we are talking about soldiers on the ground currently not total combined forces; which would take into account navy and air.

Extended tours (from 12 to 15 months), with multiple returns are common, fatigue is taking it's toll. A secondary surge has already taken place to bolster troop numbers, by sending more combat brigades and extending tours for troops already in Iraq.

Troop levels would thus increase to around 200,000 by the end of this year, a record since the start of OIF. These numbers of course do not include the large number of private military contractors in Iraq, also surging in numbers, paid for by US taxpayers under contract from the DOD. Meanwhile the Army is shedding officers at an alarming rate, 44% left, the highest loss rate in 3 decades.

With regards to the Al Anbar success stories, one must remember that is only occurring because previous Sunni insurgents have turned against Al Qaeda, making US forces the most convenient allies in driving out foreign radical Islamic terrorists. The relationship is tenacious, it also means the US forces now have to bolster previous Sunni insurgents and make them components of the Iraqi government, which is filled with Shia militias who do not want minority Sunni influence.

"To bolster that case, Bush made his own surprise visit to a U.S. military base in Anbar province on Sept. 3 to tout growing cooperation between Sunni tribal leaders and American forces.

But the sheiks didn't seek out U.S. help because an additional 30,000 U.S. troops had been shipped to Iraq. Rather, the sheiks had found themselves caught between al-Qaeda extremists on one side and Shiite-dominated government forces on the other.

The Americans became the enemy and erstwhile friend, respectively, of my enemies – and thus an ally of convenience for the Sunni sheiks.

Indeed, the Anbar situation could be viewed as evidence that the political and ethnic divisions of Iraq continue to deepen – with Sunni traditionalists growing only more desperate. But these shifting sands of allegiances have become the foundation upon which Bush is building his case for open-ended U.S. military involvement in Iraq."

- How VIPs get 'Brainwashed' on Iraq by Robert Parry.

The important thing to consider is; will such success be replicated in other provinces? Will the forces join into the Shia dominated government which opposes Sunni influence? Thus how long will this commitment last. All questions to which officers within the armed forces cannot answer, because the situation is that fragile.

After posing gamely with the troops at the Al-Asad base, Bush celebrated the return of Sunni areas to the control of U.S.-armed militias-composed largely of former insurgents who have at least temporarily decided that their Shiite rivals, currently in control of the central government, are a more pressing enemy than the American occupiers. Speaking of one such group of Sunnis trained by the Americans and dubbed the “Volunteers” by their instructors, a U.S. soldier told The Washington Post, “I think there is some risk of them being Volunteers by day and terrorists by night.”

The National Intelligence Estimate reported that Iraqi goverment is precarious, violence remains high, a decrease in Baghdad violence due to sectarian cleansing. The Government Accountability Report, a congressionally mandated report, showed that the Iraqi goverment met 3, partially 4, and did not meet 11 of its 18 benchmarks. The NIE was tweaked favorably by Gen. David Petraeus, the GAO was attacked by the White House as being 'inadmissible', 'harsh' and 'locked into failure'.

With regards to your comments about losing Iraq on principle, it was never a war for us to win in any sense, it was a systematic fear mongering campaign driven by PowerPoint presentations with aerial photographs about WMDs that got us into Iraq.

After 4 years of being constantly lied to about hostilities ending, turning the corner, mission accomplished, and witnessing the daily ineptness of the way the current administration has and is handling the war we are again on the brink of giving this administration another pass on the war up to 2009 since the current surge will remain up to and until April 2008. To have President Bush then compare the Iraq war to Vietnam; As Andrew Sullivan put it:

His speech yesterday actually managed to shock. You might think that, in wartime, a president would acknowledge what no one denies is a terribly grim decision in front of us - whether to pursue a clearly unwinnable war in order to govern a clearly ungovernable country - or withdraw and redeploy in ways that will doubtless lead to even more bloodshed. But no. There is no gray here; no awful decision for the least worst option; not acknowledgment of his own moral culpability for such a disaster. There is instead an accusation that those who reach a different judgment about the course of the war are, in fact, enemies of the troops:

Our troops are seeing this progress that is being made on the ground. And as they take the initiative from the enemy, they have a question: Will their elected leaders in Washington pull the rug out from under them just as they're gaining momentum and changing the dynamic on the ground in Iraq? Here's my answer is clear: We'll support our troops, we'll support our commanders, and we will give them everything they need to succeed.

To place all the troops into the position of favoring one strategy ahead of us rather than another, and to accuse political opponents of trying to "pull the rug out from under them," is a, yes, fascistic tactic designed to corral political debate into only one possible patriotic course. It's beneath a president to adopt this role, beneath him to coopt the armed services for partisan purposes. It should be possible for a president to make an impassioned case for continuing his own policy in Iraq, without accusing his critics of wanting to attack and betray the troops. But that would require class and confidence. The president has neither.

For more I would refer you to an excellent post - Thirteen Ways not to think about the Iraq war.

Now.......youdiejoe needs one more published viddy to get the big fiddy......This would make a great gold-bumper-

And no, Andy Kaufman was never hot with Kathy Sullivan, no more than he was an enemy of Lawler, a redneck-hater,...but Bob Zmauda, WAS Tony Clifton!!!

Barry Sullivan is not a good name for a movie star

And now R. is writing a song for Virginia Tech . . .I cringe and quiver with anticipation. I hope that "Hokie" is used as a euphemism.

His lip-synched Gilbert & Sullivan bit on the MTV awards was indeed mind-altering.