There was a serious thunderstorm here on Lulu Island today. But it was during the day, so no visible lightning. What a waste.

Anyhow, as per usual, I got stuff to share.

Like this instant it-video of this week, called Ask A Slave.

It’s a brilliant idea for some fairly low overhead web content. It’s generally pretty hard to milk the age of slavery for laughs without coming across as racist or at least incredibly insensitive, but this actress has nailed it hard.

And it mines its laughter from one of the most primal forms of comedy ever : stupidity. Even little kids laugh at stupidity, although admittedly, the bar is set pretty low for them.

But this is stupidity that requires knowledge and understanding to appreciate, which of course makes it comedy caviar for the Internet set. And her sense of humour seals the deal, of course.

Personally, I would have answered the question about how she got the job as George Washington’s maid with “His wife bought me. ” and left it at that.

But that is just me being a nitpicky comedy bitch. It’s great stuff and I am sure it will get loads of hits, at least until they run out of stupid questions to answer.

And what are the odds of that?

Next, we have this intriguing if somewhat contrived seemed flick.

It has a bit of that same feeling of contrivance as all the other historical continuity porn books and movies coming out now. Let’s take a bunch of famous people from (marvelously public domain) history and have them all meet and fight crime and solve mysteries and eat Scooby Snacks.

And that is growing a tad tiresome. Individually, I might be interested in these things, but when it becomes a genre, it becomes a cliche, and when it is historical rather than fictional characters, it just makes me irritated at the silly self-indulgent mental masturbation of it all.

People who produce media based on actual history have a duty to stick fairly close to the facts because, like it or not, a movie about history will be how a lot of people learn their history and if they see it happen before their eyes, that will be the version of history they will imagine.

Sure, lots of people can tell you how inaccurate the movie 300 is. Heck, even I knew they got a bunch of things wrong and I am no history nerd.

But because it was the first many people had heard of these events, and because it was so colorful and vivid up there on the screen, and definitely because most people are not going to go and look up the real Battle of Thermopylae on wikipedia to get the REAL Story, it will still be the version people remember and believe, even though they know, intellectually, that it’s a work of fiction.

Still, the premise of Murder Your Darlings looks interesting. I might give it a go when it reaches Netflix in a couple of years.

Next up, we have another video that is red hot right now, but not for the same reason as Ask A Slave.

It’s hot because it has two main attributes that the Internet loves : it’s weird, and it’s awful.

Well, the chorus is awful. The rest of the song is merely odd and slightly offputting the way anything European tends to be. There is always that sense of an underlying strangeness to things like this, a very subtle Uncanny Valley effect, and having them be done in quite good English only make it weirder.

After all, the Uncanny Valley only kicks in when things are almost right.

Nevertheless, sans the mind-fracturing chorus, this song would seem to be made for me. It’s all about foxes and how beautiful and mysterious we they are, and how can I argue with that?

But the horrible noises that are “what the fox say” utterly ruin it for me. I am no naturalist but I do know a thing or two about foxes and that is totally NOT what we they say, okay?

Mostly, foxes make small dog noises, with a few unique vocalizations from the same general category thrown in to show off their sophistication.

We need some high quality animal content to balance out that terrible anti-fox slander.

Luckily, I have an animated GIF that will melt your heart.

Awwwww! Best of friends.

And speaking of best friends, here’s Man’s Best Friend, helping out.

And finally, of course, we have my vid du jour. Today, it is political. And not just political, but actually dealing with current events while they are still current!

I know, it feels weird to be too. I am almost never as specific as that!

I pretty much cover the subject there. Like I say in the text at the end, I have not actually made up my mind about whether this whole Syria action is a good idea or not.

I just want some more information, information from sources other than the people trying (and failing) to sell this war to us.

One thing I have figured out : seeing as this is a civil war and not a straight up regime change, it is perfectly possible for the Americans to win the war for the rebels without ever declaring war or sending a single soldier to the region.

After all, if the Americans decimate Assad’s forces with missiles and bombs and drones, and continue to arm the rebels, the rebels will ave a vital “not being bombed into atoms by the Americans” advantage in the struggle and likely win.

And that would be ideal for all concerned (except the Assad family) because that way, at least on paper, the people successfully overthrew their horrible dictator, and thence seize control of their own government, and nobody has to occupy anyone even for a moment.

That is easier, cheaper, simpler, more democratic, more humanitarian, and above all a hell of a lot more efficient than anything done in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It might even be the pattern for the future.

And regime change is going to have to keep happening, so we might as well get good at it.